


A Fox Dies Thinking Of Its Den 狐死首丘

by yunyu



Series: Queen's Choice(s) 'Verse [5]
Category: Chinese History RPF, Original Work
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Bittersweet Ending, Chinese Language, Colonialism, Culture Shock, Dutch, Falling In Love, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Forced Marriage, Gen, Hokkien, Impregnation, Interracial Relationship, Intersex, Intersex Omegas, Knotting, Language Barrier, M/M, Mating Bites, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Omega Verse, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Pheromones, Polygamy, Possessive Behavior, Pregnancy Kink, Religious Guilt, Sibling Rivalry, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2020-12-27 06:47:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 54,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21114455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunyu/pseuds/yunyu
Summary: In the 17th century, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, as the Manchus took over mainland China, the Ming loyalist warlord Koxinga drove the Dutch colonists out of the island of Formosa and set up a kingdom there for himself.In an alternate omegaverse, among the things Koxinga seized from the Dutch was an omega young man to be a consort for his oldest alpha son, Tatpho, no matter what either of them thought about it... Tatpho quickly falls for his consort, but all Pieter wants is to go home.You do want this, you just have to get used to being mine... My needy little fox. You’re mine… I’ll keep you happy and satisfied. You won’t think of anything but me.(I made an offhand mention in my MLQC fanficQueen's Choice(s)about Pieter, an omega ancestor of main character Lucien, and I started thinking about what I had read about the historical Koxinga, and the whole historical period, and I got consumed with this idea for an original, historical omegaverse. Underage warning: main characters are 17 and 18 by modern reckoning at the beginning of the story. Rape/non-con warning: forced marriage of a prisoner and an attempted sexual assault.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yunyu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunyu/gifts).

> I don't speak Dutch or Hokkien in either modern variety, much less know how either was spoken in the 17th century. Treat inevitable inaccuracies in language, history, or cultural practices as being accurate in this alternate universe. How convenient a thing alternate universes are!
> 
> Although Koxinga was a real person, everyone else is completely fictional, and the specifics about the historical Koxinga are not accurate. Moreover, this is an omegaverse, so it's definitely not the real historical past!

Tatpho kept his eyes down, as he had to in the presence of his father, but he let his gaze go absolutely wild.

Any young alpha ought to be thrilled to learn he was getting an omega male consort. “He’ll give you many sons,” his father had said, and everyone knew that was true—and the reason why an omega male consort was the realm of the elite of the elite. Even his father had only managed an omega female as his principle wife.

Tatpho heard his father laugh and knew he was in trouble.

“Tatpho, you’re not grateful? Should I save him for one of your brothers?”

That almost made Tatpho look up, but training kept him in position.

“Tatsin is just about old enough under the law already,” his father’s first lieutenant pointed out acidly. 

Tatpho nicked his tongue on his canine to keep control. Tatsin was the oldest of his half-siblings by his father’s beloved, now deceased omega wife, the one who had supplanted his own beta mother as principle wife. Only his own existence as his father’s first alpha son had kept his mother well-treated; most of his other wives and concubines languished in neglect. “I am grateful, father, but…” _ But a barbarian…! _“Don’t you want him for yourself as a concubine?”

There was a long silence, and that made Tatpho’s heart rate speed up. He’d known a laugh like that meant he was in trouble, but he had no idea what to make of this.

At last his father said, in a voice that was very tired and sad, “You tempt me, Tatpho. You truly do. You’ll come to me in a year’s time and kiss my feet thanking me for not doing just that. You had better go and bite him now, in case I change my mind. But only bite him. Wait until he’s in heat to put a child into him—it’ll go better that way.”

—-

And so now he was staring at one of the ugliest and most miserable creatures he had ever beheld, and attempting to gather together the nerve to overcome his repulsion and do what his father commanded.

The omega had been separated from the other prisoners, washed, and dressed in the clothes of an omega, but it gave Tatpho the impression of trying to dress a piglet up as a baby. The youth had blotchy skin and a puffy face, doubtless partially from the same kind of crying that he was even now doing from those spooky bright blue eyes. His demonic red hair had been somewhat tamed into a simple braid. He was huddled in the corner of the room with his knees up to his chest and staring at Tatpho with silent fear.

“Come here,” Tatpho said, but the way the youth stared back made it clear that he didn’t understand even this simple instruction in Chinese.

Tatpho sighed and walked forward, and the omega widened his eyes and then squeezed them tightly shut and kept them shut as Tatpho got to him. When Tatpho took hold of the omega’s shoulders, he realized the youth had his hands tied together tightly and ankles loosely, so he may not have been able to obey him even if he understood.

_“Niet doen,”_ said the youth in a trembling voice, _“a-alstublieft, niet… niet doen…”_

Tatpho didn’t understand Dutch but he had a pretty good guess as to what the youth was saying: _ Please don’t do this. _

As if he had a choice.

He breathed in as he opened his mouth, and was momentarily checked with surprise by the omega’s scent.

The omega must have been keeping his pheromones suppressed, because Tatpho hadn’t smelled them at all until he got this close. It was like something dark and sweet that he couldn’t identify entirely, it was marvellous… he pushed the youth’s braid aside and leaned into his neck to scent him more overtly, and the omega whimpered and released pheromones, and Tatpho could _ smell _the distress in them and it surged through him with one overwhelming instinct:

Take care of him. _ Take _ him. _ Mark him. _

His teeth were in the back of the omega’s neck at once. He heard the youth’s pained moan, and it went right to his groin. When he’d entered the room, he’d been utterly disgusted to the point of not wanting to approach the boy. Now he was struggling to control himself from pulling up the omega’s dress and knotting him right there on the floor.

_ “Nee,” _ the omega was whimpering, _ “nee, nee…” _

Tatpho released his bite and licked at the wound, purring soothingly by instinct, but the omega shuddered and his tears seemed to fall even faster. His breath quickened and he hiccuped as he shook in Tatpho’s embrace. He was getting hysterical.

“Calm down,” Tatpho purred, even though he knew the omega couldn’t understand. “It’s all done now. I’m not going to hurt you, you’re mine… oh…”

He had caught sight of his collar on the omega, a burgundy coil proclaiming his ownership.

“You’re mine…” Tatpho repeated, still purring and filled with a deep satisfaction. 

When his omega had finally stopped sobbing, he seemed to be falling asleep. Tatpho eased his omega down onto the sleeping mat and looked around for a blanket. There was none.

At that moment the door opened and a servant he knew poked his head in. “Your lord father asked me to remind the young master to stop at biting.”

“I know,” said Tatpho. “My omega needs a blanket, he’ll get cold.”

“Certainly, young master.”

———

_ I want to go home. _

Even before his feet had left Dutch soil, Pieter had been thinking that. He had thought it all through the long, arduous journey across the oceans. He had thought it when he arrived in Formosa and did as his father bade him as leader of the fort.

During the siege by the Chinese, the thought had been supplanted by the more pressing thought _ I don’t want to die, _ especially when it became obvious that the fort was going to be overrun. But when it was all over and he was taken prisoner, _ I want to go home _ had taken up primary position again.

One of the other Dutch prisoners had bargained for something by revealing Pieter’s shameful secret: that he was an omega. If his father was still alive he would have died again with shame. Pieter was his father’s only son and it was vitally important to Meneer van der Stel that his son, and not his brother, inherit his possessions. That was why he had insisted on Pieter going with him to Formosa for this “two year” assignment; he didn’t trust the boy’s uncle not to find the secret out and exploit it.

But his father _ was _ dead. The only person left to feel shame was Pieter, when he was separated from the others and stripped of all his clothes. Every inch of him was examined and prodded at. He’d thought for sure he was about to be gang raped, but though they touched him there it was in a detached way. It still felt a complete violation, but a different kind. He was livestock being evaluated for purchase.

Women cleaned him off and dressed him like a Chinese; men rebound his wrists and chained his ankles so that he could hobble along with them.

He was presented to Koxinga, the enemy general, himself, and a great deal of Chinese was spoken. No one bothered to say anything to him that he could understand.

He was shown to a room with a sleeping mat and a chamberpot and given the first decent meal that he’d had for months. There was even meat! It was in the native style but he was too hungry to find the big wooden bowl of soup anything but delicious.

But once the food was gone there was nothing to do but think about how much he wanted to go home.

He let himself cry as he hadn’t for years. What did it matter at this point? There was no need to pretend to be his father’s dutiful beta son.

He was an omega, less than a woman, and he would never go home again. He felt like vomiting up the food he’d just consumed with so much enjoyment. He was just waiting to be raped, now, wasn’t that so? And waiting like a docile lamb…

They had given him a wooden bowl and a wooden spoon, the chamberpot was made of wood too, nothing he could smash and use to avoid this fate. He didn’t even have a blanket to strangle himself with. Not that he needed a blanket in this miserably hot island.

_ I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home! _

He was huddled up in the corner thinking this when the door unlocked and he got his first look at his soon to be husband.

That it was an alpha he knew at once; the smell, like lemongrass and metal, wafted over to him and set him trembling with anticipation.

_ I’m about to be raped… _

The alpha didn’t look that much older than him; he barely had any facial hair, and though he had his hair up in a cap which meant he must be an adult, he couldn’t have been one for long. His lip was curled in a sneer as he looked down at Pieter, and he said something in Chinese. “Come here,” maybe? Pieter couldn’t have moved anyway; he wanted to dissolve into the floor.

The alpha looked even more disgusted and walked over to him and took him by the shoulders. As his braid was moved out of the way, Pieter realized with an electric shock that they weren’t going to just rape him and then kill him when they were tired of him after all; he was about to be _ marked. _

He’d always kept his pheromones suppressed because his father wanted him to be a beta, and it had become an automatic habit, but with an alpha right there huffing at his neck, he couldn’t control himself from releasing them.

“Don’t,” he cried out in a panic, “P-please sir, don’t…”

Then he cried out in pain and despair as the alpha bit down hard, a cry that became a shameful moan as his body rejoiced to feel an alpha’s pheromones flooding it.

“No, no, no,” he whimpered, and the alpha released the bite but it was done, he knew it was done, even as he felt the alpha’s licking the wound he’d just left on him.

The alpha began purring to him and Pieter felt his body surrendering to it, but his mind was panicking even harder. He had lost everything, and now he was even losing control of his own body, and he hated it. He wanted his body, at least, to be his own, and so he was fighting the purr with everything he had, but the only result was that he was hyperventilating and shaking with sobs.

The alpha spoke soothingly to him in Chinese, and Pieter didn’t understand it until the last thing he said, and repeated: _ Li si wa e. _ You are mine.

_ I’m not yours, _he wanted to say back, but he was too exhausted, and the alpha wouldn’t stop purring. He couldn’t win, he was falling asleep.

Pieter slept deeply, so deeply that when servants came to get him and carry him to the young master’s home, he barely stirred. They did it in the dead of night so as not to attract a crowd to see and smell a rare thing indeed: a male omega going into heat.

———

Once out of his omega’s immediate range, Tatpho could not believe how bestial he’d become. He’d acted like this ugly barbarian was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Pathetic.

“You sent him into heat already,” his father laughed at dinner, but this time it was the laugh that meant he was really pleased. “My first grandson, excellent. Tatke.”

Tatpho’s older beta brother, who had a beta daughter by his beta wife, jerked up guiltily, as if he was afraid his father had perceived the bitter thoughts in his heart. “Yes, father?”

“There’s a typhoon coming. The Dutch will be vulnerable. They refused my surrender demand again. You will lead the force onto their last fort. Leave in the morning.”

His brother nodded because it was the only thing he could do, but Tatpho could feel the resentment coming off him in waves. Tatke would lead a force on a dangerous trip through a typhoon to take on a desperate Dutch fort that would be fighting like cornered rats for their lives; meanwhile, his younger brother would be safe here in Takao, getting nothing but his dick wet.

All because Tatpho was an alpha.

After dinner his father told Tatke to wait to discuss plans, then gestured for Tatpho to come with him privately.

They walked. The cooling night air had that eerie pressure of an oncoming typhoon.

“Tatpho,” his father said, suddenly stopping out in the open. “You will want to take him as soon as you walk into the room. Don’t. Don’t even take him as soon as he wakes up. Let him ask for it. Then you’ll have his devotion from the beginning.”

“Ask for it how?” said Tatpho. “He can’t understand a word of Chinese.”

His father laughed. “He doesn’t need to. Just wait and see…” Then he sighed. “Alright, go to him. We’ll deal with the formalities of the marriage when his heat breaks in a few days.”

Tatpho bowed, and again saw his father looking very sad and troubled.

———

Pieter had a reputation for being very sickly. He didn’t have his first heat until he was on the island of Formosa. His father, an alpha, had been watching for it like a hawk, or perhaps more accurately a hound. Every morning a humiliating ritual of sniffing began their day, with his father sticking his nose right into his son’s neck and inquiring pointedly about fatigue. When preheat struck, he would be locked up in the most interior room, while everyone else would be told that poor sickly Pieter was down with some tropical consumption again. 

Meanwhile, Pieter was forced to ride out every dry heat alone with only his own fingers to try to console himself. His father always destroyed any makeshift dildo or toy he discovered his son trying to sneak, with a lecture on depravity and hell. He probably would have cut off his son’s fingers if it had been possible to avoid comment on it. Apparently Pieter was supposed to spend the dry heat on his knees in prayer.

He often did pray, but it was usually with his fingers inside himself and what he was begging God for was a cock, an alpha’s cock with a knot, a big, thick knot to get stuck on and fill up this awful, aching, dripping emptiness.

When he was not in heat, he was terrified of sex. After all, he could not imagine himself ever having sex without it being part of a total disaster.

And this was indeed a total disaster.

But he woke up not caring about anything like that.

He woke up in darkness, but he felt like his body was a furnace. Rain was pelting the roof loudly. He was on a bed, and as he threw the blankets off of his suddenly scorching hot body, he became aware all at once that he wasn’t alone in the bed.

Pieter smelled lemongrass and metal again and his body was thrumming with ecstasy: _ it’s my alpha. _

His mind had no coherence to make any objection to this, especially because when Pieter fumbled over to touch the alpha, the alpha took him into his lap eagerly and began helping Pieter get the clothes off of him.

_ Yes, yes, get it off, it’s too hot, I can’t take it, I can’t have anything between my skin and my alpha’s. I want him all over me, I want him inside me, I want him to fill me with himself… _

The alpha groaned as he pulled away the wet underwear, tossed it to the side, and immediately put his hand between Pieter’s legs to grope against the dripping wet slit there, but he also bumped into Pieter’s dick and that seemed to check him.

The alpha pulled his hand away and Pieter was seized with the terror that the alpha might reject him _ now, _ at this moment, when his cock was so close! “Please… I need, I need…” Pieter didn’t know how to say what he needed, not even in Dutch, and he couldn’t come up with any Chinese at all except a whimpering, _ “Phai se, phai se”: _ I’m sorry.

The alpha let out a surprised laugh. _ “Phai se?!” _ He echoed, and Pieter felt his cheek being caressed, and then the alpha said with some amusement, _ “Koh kong chit pai a.” _

Pieter had no idea what this meant or what he was supposed to do

_ “Koh kong chit pai, ‘phai se.’” _ A finger tapped on Pieter’s mouth. “ _ ‘Phai se’, li kong.” _

_ “Phai se,” _ Pieter tried hesitantly, and was rewarded with another indulgent chuckle.

_ “Khiau lah,” _ the alpha said, and released pheromones.

There was a crack of thunder but Pieter didn’t startle. He was burying his face in the crook between his alpha’s neck and shoulder and for the first time in years and years, he felt something akin to comfortable. The lightning flashed but his eyes were closed to it.

Then the alpha was reaching between them again, touching Pieter’s opening with his fingers, and then with something else.

Pieter gasped as the alpha took hold of his hips and guided him down, made him sink down onto his alpha’s cock. Not only his fingers, but even the makeshift dildos he had attempted to use to desperately placate the desire had never been as thick, warm, and fulfilling as this… and it just kept filling him, pushing into him so deep that it didn’t seem possible that there was a space within him as large as this, and yet eventually Pieter’s bottom was flush against the top of the alpha’s thighs.

The alpha pulled Pieter in and held him close, murmuring to him in Chinese again.

“I-I don’t understand, I don’t know…” Pieter moaned with difficulty. The heat haze was making it so hard to think of anything but the cock inside him and why it wasn’t moving.

The lightning flashed and flashed again, and for that moment Pieter saw the alpha’s face illuminated, changing from uncomprehending to smiling. _ “Bo siamih,” _ he said, caressing Pieter’s face as they were plunged in the dark again, and then he rolled them over together.

———

The heat smell had made him quicken his steps as he got to the palace where his father now ruled as a king in all but name. From that far away he could smell it and it panicked him.

_ If someone else has gotten to him I’ll kill him, I’ll rip him to pieces… _

But nobody had. Maybe the smell effected only him now that they were mates?

He burst into his bedroom and found it very dark, nearly pitch black because of the storm defenses. He fumbled to the bed and heard the slow breaths of his omega.

_ He’s still asleep… _

_ I want to wake him up and fuck him already, this is insane, my father is an idiot to tell me to wait for him to ask me— _

But as Tatpho reached for the blanket he suddenly froze, remembering not his father’s orders, but the omega’s hiccuping panic at being marked by him only twelve hours prior.

_ He was terrified of me. _

_ If I wake him up now and fuck him before he’s ready, I’ll hurt him. _

_ I can’t hurt him. _

Slowly, Tatpho pulled his hand back. He stood there a long time, and his eyes adjusted to the meager light enough to make out the shape of his omega all huddled up in piles of blankets to keep him warm.

Gingerly Tatpho walked around to the other side of the bed, undressed with a careless disregard for his clothes, and got into the bed. He fumbled against a folded blanket that the servants must have left for him and unfolded it. Though it was late summer the typhoon was cooling the evening.

His omega woke him up by throwing off the blankets and in almost the same moment climbing on top of him, and Tatpho accepted him eagerly. The rain pelting the roof felt as hard and fast as the heart beating against his ribs as he untied and pulled away the bothersome fabric hindering him from touching every millimeter of his omega, but especially that small wet little hole that was going to grip onto him, that was going to take his seed and nurture it for him.

And it was _ so _ wet against his fingers, it was dripping past his fingers and onto his thighs. Tatpho felt his omega’s hard little cock against his wrist and thought, _ he wants it, he wants it— _

But did he?

Tatpho suddenly pulled his hand away, seized with doubt.

His father had told him that he would want this omega. True, despite his initial disgust. His father had told him to bite the omega only and not try to fuck him immediately. That had been the right advice again, he could already tell. And his father had said, don’t do it the moment he wakes up, wait until he asks for it.

_ “Alstublieft… ik wil, ik wil…” _The omega was whimpering in his barbarian tongue, and then, out of nowhere, said in understandable if heavily accented Chinese, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“‘I’m sorry’?!” Tatpho said with a surprised laugh. Did his little omega know some Chinese after all? He touched the omega’s cheek and where before the roundness had repulsed him, now it seemed almost unutterably adorable. “Say that again.”

He felt the hot cheek warm even further beneath his fingers, but the omega was silent.

“Say that again,” he coaxed, touching his omega’s lips to help him grasp the meaning. “‘I’m sorry,’ you say it.”

“I’m sorry…”

Oh, it was even cuter this time, so odd but so careful. Tatpho laughed again and told him so. “Clever…”

He felt himself giving off pheromones even more, and his omega was leaning into him, nuzzling against his neck and inhaling him. 

_ This has got to be him asking for it, he definitely wants it, I’m sure… _

He put his hand back to his omega’s entrance again, and this time it was to line his cock head up to it.

His omega gasped as Tatpho breached him, keened as he was eased down bit by bit, enveloping Tatpho in tight, wet warmth. At the point where beta women were already crying with pain, the omega was showing no distress of that kind at all, merely sinking down lower and lower still…

“Does it hurt?” Tatpho said quietly once his omega was flush against him. “You’ve taken all of me at once, it’s amazing. Tell me when you’re ready for me to move.”

_ “Ik, ik versta geen, ik snap niet…” _The voice was nervous, supplicating…

Tatpho stared for a moment trying to understand and then as another flash of lightning lit up his omega’s face, he smiled. “It’s nothing,” he said, mostly to himself. What did words matter anyway? An omega wasn’t for talking to, but for fucking.

He rolled them over together and began to fuck him in earnest, and he heard only sounds of pleasure mingled with the rain, wind, and thunder. Occasionally the lightning lit up the room through the cracks and every time Tatpho was startled by how oddly lovely his omega seemed to him now, the rust-coloured hair escaping from the braid in tendrils that curled around his face. Like leaves or vines… and his skin was so soft, _ so _ soft, unbelievably white, and he smelled so _ good… _

_“Ik k-kom klaar,”_ his omega whined, _“ah, zo goed, zo goed…”_

Tatpho felt his omega’s cum splashing up against his abdomen and he couldn’t help moaning himself because his cock was being caressed even more sweetly as he thrust now—

The young alpha couldn’t hold back any longer, his knot locking him inside his omega.

“Ahhhh,” his omega wailed and clutched at his back. _ “Ik ga dood, ik ga dood, ik ga dood! Dit is te… te…!” _

Tatpho came down from his orgasm and realized with alarm that his omega was crying underneath him.

_ Oh fuck… I thought he was ready?! _

“Does it hurt?” Tatpho asked, and then swore. "Fuck, you can't understand me..."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," his omega whimpered, and Tatpho's heart melted more.

"Don't be sorry," Tatpho soothed, wiping the tears with his fingers as best he could. "I'm not angry, I just want to take care of you... you're mine, so—"

_ "Nee! Nee, _you are mine. I am mine," he interrupted.

Tatpho blinked. "Huh?"

"I am mine, I am mine, _ I am mine... ik ben van mezelf!" _

The omega started pushing him off, but it was too soon, his knot wasn't down yet.

"Stop it," Tatpho said, easily grabbing hold of the omega's arms. "You have to wait. Do you understand? Wait, wait."

The omega stopped struggling and began to sob again. The mixture of distress into his heat smell was making Tatpho's stomach twist, and his knot actually went down much quicker than usual. He pulled out as soon as it did, and the omega turned and huddled in a fetal position facing away from him, still crying.

_ "Ik wil naar huis, ik wil naar huis," _ he was saying over and over, sometimes, _ "ik wil gewoon naar huis." _

Hesitantly, Tatpho tried purring, and the omega stopped talking, then stopped crying, and even eased back against his alpha as he fell asleep, but Tatpho was not stupid enough to mistake this for anything real.

He got out of bed, redressed, and looked for a particular worker.

———

"'Ik wil naar huis?' It means _ I want to go home," _said Ah Gim, "which is a real coincidence because I also want to go home. What is this about, young master?"

"We captured an omega male from the Dutch and my father gave me to me as a consort," said Tatpho. "We haven't had the wedding yet, but..."

Ah Gim whistled. "A Dutch consort?! No wonder he wants to go home." He grinned. "But I'm sure an alpha like young master can make any omega forget anything but your cock. How was it, eh?"

"Ah Gim, I'm serious. I need a few words of Dutch so I can talk to him, alright? He may already have my child in him, I need to keep him calm through the rest of his heat. Then I'll need you to make sure he learns to speak properly."

Ah Gim yawned and stretched. “Fine, fine, I suppose with your lord father chasing the Dutch out, my language skills won’t be making me money any other way now.”


	2. Chapter 2

Pieter slept deeply again and had strange dreams of being trapped in a glass box underwater. He wanted to break the glass and get out, but if he did that, wouldn’t the water rush in and drown him? He couldn’t even see the surface, he didn’t know how far down he was. But if he didn’t break out, he was going to die down here anyway.

He felt so empty, so lonely, so hopeless.

The water was swirling against the glass and with a massive cracking sound it shattered. Pieter screamed in fear—

And found himself in a bed, in the same bed where…

“Are… you… alright?” the alpha said behind him in very oddly accented and hesitant Dutch, and gingerly laid a hand on his shoulder and purred.

Pieter turned. It must be day now, because it was much brighter in the room, but still dim and still being pounded by the rain. Thunder was sounding again; that must have been the noise that woke him up.

“I… nightmare, a nightmare…” Pieter pointed to his head, closed his eyes to mime sleeping, and made a scared face then opened his eyes again. “Nightmare.”

The alpha nodded, still purring, and it was helping, Pieter could feel how his body was relaxing and he wanted to curl into his alpha’s arms and go back to sleep…

The alpha was looking up and down his body now. Pieter got a conflicted burst of thoughts and feelings.

_ Yes, fuck me! Fill me again, I need it! _

_ I don’t want to be treated like this, I can’t stand it, this is so humiliating. _

_ I’m so tired and I’m so scared. _

The alpha took the blankets that Pieter had partially thrown off when he woke up from the nightmare and pulled them back into place over Pieter.

The alpha smiled at him, a little shyly. He was kneeling on the bed next to Pieter, dressed in a thin nightshift of some kind. “Name?”

Pieter blinked, and the alpha repeated again, “Name, you… name?”

“My name?” Oh. Well of course. Nobody had ever bothered to ask him that. “Pieter van der Stel.”

His alpha looked daunted. “Pieterandesutelu?” he tried, and Pieter actually laughed, for the first time in he didn’t even know how long.

“Pieter, name. Family name, van der Stel… me, Pieter. Pieter.”

“Pieterrr,” the alpha tried again, emphasizing the exotic end r in his attempt to get it right.

“Yes, Pieter.”

“Tenn Tatpho," the alpha said, pointing to his nose in the Chinese way of self-identification. "Name, Tenn Tatpho."

"Tenn Tatpho..." Pieter knew already that Tenn was the name of the clan of the ruler of the Chinese forces. This alpha must be part of the ruling clan.

"Good," the alpha said, then seemed to gather himself. "You say me, Ang E. Husband. Ang E, me. You say Ang E."

Pieter felt a hopeless chill wash through him. This was clearly very important to Tenn Tatpho, that Pieter call him _ husband. _That Pieter submit to him as his wife.

Pieter looked down at his blanket. "Ang E..."

The alpha tapped on him to get his attention, and when Pieter looked up again, his face was pleased, yet also more understanding than Pieter had expected. He made a wide gesture to the door and the windows. "You say Ang E, you say Ang E." Then he patted the bed, and gestured between them. "You say Tatpho, Tatpho. Good?"

It wasn't exactly good, but Pieter did at least appreciate the permission to call him by his name when they were alone. "Tatpho."

Tatpho smiled. "Pieter. Pieter... hurt?" He gestured a little towards Pieter's lower body.

Oh. He must be thinking of how Pieter had cried and sobbed before when he was being knotted. At first it was tears of sheer overwhelming ecstasy, of a pleasure that was too much to handle, but as his mind cleared he had begun to panic, because he knew, he had been warned so much by his father. He was now pregnant.

"It'll be a child of your _ sin," _his father would hiss during that particular recurring lecture, striking at Pieter's pudgy abdomen such that the boy had to bite his cheek not to cry out. "You'll swell with it here, and give birth in agony due to Eve's treachery. You'll be lower than the lowest whore, and no one will aid you."

And if his father could know that he'd been sired on by a Chinese…

_"Phai se,"_ Tatpho said, and Pieter had his attention drawn away from these horrible memories to the present, where his alpha was obviously under the impression that he'd hurt or injured Pieter with his knot.

"Not hurt," said Pieter hurriedly, "not hurt, it's... it's... scared, afraid..."

Tatpho stared, uncomprehending.

Pieter tried the crossed arms rocking gesture. "Baby..." He made his face express the terror he felt constantly. "Afraid."

Comprehension dawned on Tatpho’s face. “Oh…” Then, slowly, Tatpho pulled down the blankets.

Pieter’s heart rate sped up as his bare torso with traces of his own cum dried onto it was revealed, but Tatpho let the blankets stop over his hips and then just looked down at him.

Pieter followed his gaze and saw what he saw: a small bulge in his abdomen.

Pieter began to panic, his breath fast and shallow. _ Already? It’s already this big, oh God have mercy on me, I didn’t want to, I had no choice! _

“Good,” purred Tatpho, catching hold of Pieter’s hands as he had scampered up the bed in some absurd attempt to escape his own body. “Pieter, good. No afraid, good.”

Pieter shook his head madly. “I am afraid!”

Tatpho seemed to concede this, thinking a moment. “Hurt. Yes, hurt. Pieter… I…” The alpha paused as if trying to remember something. “I take care you. Good?”

Tears were slipping down Pieter’s face again. He felt utterly pathetic and so exhausted.

“No say,” Tatpho said, seeming to realize he had pushed his omega too far for now. “Sleep, Pieter. You sleep. Good. I take care. Good?”

Pieter let himself ease back down, let Tatpho put the blankets over him again. He breathed in more slowly… his alpha’s scent was so…

———

Tatpho had never imagined he could feel so much empathy for someone like this. He had been raised to consider outsiders and women unimportant and this was an extreme version of both: a Dutch omega.

Pieter. What a strange sound…

Pieter was falling asleep again, and Tatpho watched him in the morning light.

When the omega seemed sound asleep, he stretched and sighed. His cock was so hard, he wanted so badly to rip the blankets back down and shove it into that wonderful place again.

He’d never held himself back from fucking his concubine whenever he wanted, never thought of checking whether she was willing. By the fact that she was his concubine she was by definition always willing. That was what she was there for. And though he hadn’t really thought about it, he would have assumed that a wife would be the same. A wife would be different only in that she would be allowed to sleep in his bed, instead of needing to go back to her own no matter what.

But he felt this intense need to take care of Pieter. It was the reason why he had asked Ah Gim to tell him how to say it, as embarrassing as it was.

Yes, being pregnant must be scary for the one who was pregnant… it hurt and it could even…

Tatpho put a hand to his head. His father’s omega had died from childbirth complications and his father had never been the same. If Pieter died…

Yesterday if they had come to Tatpho when he was being ordered by his father to take the omega and told him “that Dutch omega is dead already” he would have been relieved. Now the premise of losing Pieter was like the thought of losing his own limb.

_ “I want to go home, I want to go home.” _

Did Pieter have… family, in that faraway land the Dutch came from? Or maybe he simply wanted his homeland, that was natural… but he would never go back, he had to stay here with Tatpho and be his consort.

He _ had _ to…

The rust-coloured hair had escaped its braid even more now. Pieter was lying on his side with the hair towards Tatpho, and he reached out and gently untied the ribbon altogether, and started picking the braid apart.

_ Why do Dutch men cut their hair? It’s such a waste… _

The ends curled up. Tatpho gently pulled one straight, and it immediately curled again the moment he let it go.

_ Like a fox tail… _

Tatpho had seen mixed children before and hair that curled was one of the most frequent signs, though it was usually still black. The idea of fathering mixed children as his heirs had been one of things that made him incredulous when his father was adamant that the omega be his consort.

Already the prospect didn’t matter to him. It was personal now, his seed in his omega. His child.

_ He’ll look so beautiful when his hair grows out properly… I’ll be the only one who gets to enjoy it loose. _

With some effort, he pulled himself away from just watching his omega and went back to finish the food that had been brought to him for breakfast.

When he had finished, he got back into bed again. Pieter had shifted in his sleep once and was now on his back. The blankets had slid down and his pale neck, the lower part wrapped with the dark red of Tatpho’s mark, was visible.

Tatpho put a hand to his hardening cock and stroked it, even though he knew it was a bad idea. With the smell of Pieter’s heat in the room and Pieter himself sleeping there, he would absolutely knot his hand if he masturbated and make an enormous mess.

_ Wake up… please wake up, you want this, don’t you? My omega. You do want this, you want this cock, you just have to get used to being mine. _

He was letting his pheromones flood the room, and he saw Pieter’s breath deepen, then quicken. Just in time he pulled his hand away and let his nightshift fall down again, because Pieter’s eyes fluttered open.

Though Tatpho hadn’t wanted Pieter to see him masturbating over his sleeping body, when Pieter’s gaze looked down, it locked onto the bulge in his shift. Pieter flushed, his eyes looked away and down, and his chin went up.

Instantly Tatpho went for his front gland, inhaling right against it, and letting out a little purr of satisfaction when the pheromones Pieter released this time weren’t frightened or distressed at all. Just needy, needy like the little whimpers Pieter was making and how his body was sinuously moving beneath the blanket.

Tatpho sat up to pull off the nightshift, and when it was off Pieter was looking at his cock with wide eyes.

_ “God allemachtig,” _ Pieter said faintly.

_ “Je wil dit?” _ Tatpho said, hopefully well enough to pass on his meaning: do you want this?

Pieter didn’t say yes, but he didn’t reject him either, he just kept staring. After a moment, Tatpho picked up Pieter’s hand and slowly guided it onto his cock. Pieter didn’t fight him, and when Tatpho let his hand go, he didn’t pull it away at once, but loosely wrapped his hand around it.

_ “Ik wil dit,” _Pieter said in a small voice, and he looked completely ashamed.

Tatpho straddled Pieter and put a hand to that round red cheek again. _ “Goed… goed Pieter… ik zorg jou. Goed, goed?” _

Pieter actually smiled a little. _ “Ik zorg _ voor _ jou,” _he said.

_ “Ik zorg voor jou,” _Tatpho said.

The smile was conflicted, but it was still a smile, and when Tatpho reached between them and began to touch Pieter, the face became utterly erotic.

“Tatpho…” his omega moaned as Tatpho pushed his cock inside him. _ “Goed, te goed…” _

Tatpho went slower this time, putting his face back into Pieter’s neck. _ I want to bite him… will he like that? _

He put his teeth against Pieter’s gland and scraped the canines against the skin. Pieter let out a startled gasp but didn’t make any kind of noise of protest. Instead he groaned pleasurably, and it only got louder when Tatpho let his little fangs break the skin, let himself taste Pieter’s delicious sweetness and pour his own pheromones into his omega.

He released and lapped at the wound, making himself lightheaded with how much he kept sniffing at Pieter, checking for the slightest hint of distress.

Having cum only hours earlier, Tatpho was able to provide much more stamina this time. He reached down to touch Pieter’s cock and encourage his omega to cum more, and every time he did, he would lower his head and brush his nose against Pieter’s, to make the omega look up at his face. He wanted Pieter to know who was making him feel this good; he wanted Pieter to think only of pleasure when he looked at him.

On about the fifth time that he did this, Pieter surprised him by lifting up his hand and catching the side of Tatpho’s face in a caress, keeping him down and touching his face to Pieter’s. Then he lifted his head to kiss Tatpho’s lips. 

Tatpho’s heart skipped a beat. He pushed his head down so that Pieter could let his neck fall back as he kissed him, and his hips thrust down hard and stayed down as his knot swelled and his cum streamed into Pieter again.

“Ah,” Pieter cried against his lips. “T-tatpho…”

_ Mine, _ Tatpho thought but didn’t say, because Pieter had reacted so negatively before. _ You’re mine, mine, mine, I’ll make you want to be only mine. _

He pressed his mouth more insistently against Pieter’s, pulling the hand that had been stroking his omega’s cock away and wiping it on the sheet.

Pieter was clutching at him, but Tatpho worried that he was too heavy on top of Pieter, so he carefully put his arms beneath Pieter and rolled them so that they were on their sides. He brushed Pieter’s hair out of his face._ “Goed?” _

_ “Ja, goed…” _ muttered Pieter. His cheeks were bright pink, such a contrast to the blue of his eyes. They got even pinker as Tatpho touched them.

_ He’s so cute… he’s like a fox spirit, he really is, he’s even both male and female like them… maybe people like him are what all the old legends are about. My little fox. _

_ “Je slaap,” _Tatpho suggested, and Pieter seemed to take him up on this suggestion to sleep, closing his eyes as Tatpho continued to stroke his hair.

Tatpho was a naturally talkative person, and as Pieter dozed around his knot, he indulged himself by whispering to his omega. “I love the sounds and the faces you make when you cum. Your cunt feels so amazing around my knot. I can’t wait to see you heavy with my child. I want to see your beautiful hair between my legs, sucking my cock. I want you to ride me. I want you to beg me for my cock. I want to be the only thing in this world that matters to you… me, and my children by you… I want you to tell me that you are mine. You’ll always be mine, my omega, my consort, my bond.”

Tatpho took a strand of Pieter’s hair and kissed it.

“Ah, my knot’s going down… when you wake up it’ll get hard for you again, don’t worry. I’ll give you my knot all you need, fill your belly up even more. My needy little fox. You’re mine… I’ll keep you happy and satisfied. You won’t think of anything but me.”

Tatpho let out a contented sigh at this rosy vision of the future. “Hmm, what else… yes, I’ll teach you to speak properly… but you’ll probably keep that accent… it doesn’t matter, it’s very cute. I’ll always understand you… I’ll even let you teach me your silly barbarian words, if it makes you happy…” His grin widened. “Tell me how to say, _ you take my knot so well, little fox.” _

Pieter stayed asleep as Tatpho pulled his softening cock out, and even as Tatpho manhandled him into turning onto his other side so that Tatpho could spoon him, rest a hand with primal joy on the bulge in his abdomen, bury his face in the nape of his neck and savour the smell of his omega.

———

Pieter’s heat broke on the fourth day. He felt as if he was having his monthly bleeding, but instead globs of semen came out onto the cloth he wiped himself with, and his belly went back to normal.

For now, at least.

Tatpho got him medicinal soup to drink (a nourishing, rather than curative one, so it wasn’t bad tasting) and then they bathed together, washing the remains of dozens of Pieter’s orgasms off of them both.

Pieter still wasn’t used to the Chinese style of bathing. He had been taught to wash the parts of himself not covered by clothing, such as his face and hands, and always to wear clean clothes, but otherwise never bathed; and because his dynamic was a secret, he was never allowed to join other boys at pools in the summer. Before he was given to Tatpho, he was scrubbed all over in a business-like manner by what felt like a swarm of women, and was already at least partially dissociating to cope.

Tatpho was tender and thorough, and he used the opportunity to teach Pieter the names of the parts of the body.

_ “Paktoo,” _he said, lovingly scrubbing Pieter’s belly. They were just about finished, Pieter thought.

_ “Paktoo,” _ Pieter repeated shyly, then gasped as Tatpho moved his hands onto Pieter’s penis.

_ “Lanchiau.” _

_ “Lan… lan-ch-chiau,” _Pieter stammered out with difficulty while his cock was being teased into hardness, and then moaned as two fingers and then three slipped inside him.

_ “Chibai,” _ Tatpho said wickedly into Pieter’s ear as he fingered him while Pieter panted and gripped onto his alpha’s shoulders. _ “Hn, chibai, li kong lah~” _

_ “Chi… chi… _ah, Tatpho, I’m… I want…” Pieter moaned.

“You want me? Tch, _ khisiau uan lah, li ti honnsik ah?” _ Tatpho’s breath was hot on his neck and Pieter didn’t need to understand Chinese to realize he was being teased. “You say. _ ‘Wa aibeh li lanchiau.’ _You say.”

Since he had just learned that _ lanchiau _ meant “penis,” that he was being asked to say something like “I want your penis” seemed obvious. Since he wasn’t in heat anymore, he ought to have been able to turn this down. But he was still a horny teenager whether he was in heat or not. _“Wa… wa aibi—”_

_“Aibei.”_

_“Wa aibei… li lanchiau…!”_ It was a whine by this point.

“You want me,” Tatpho hissed, and to Pieter’s surprise he found himself being twisted around and pushed forward. He caught himself on the rim of the huge wooden tub full of steaming water. Had the alpha really made him humiliate himself, made him admit his desire, just to be scolded for it? Or… this posture… oh God. Tears sprung to his eyes. Belted, he was going to be belted. Belted for being such a whore.

A large hand was pushing down on his back, keeping him bent, and he opened his mouth to say _ Phai se _ and hopefully reduce the severity of the beating but instead he let out a loud wordless cry, because Tatpho’s cock was inside him, was fucking him hard and fast.

His fingers gripped the wood, the feelings coming from his bottom were so incredible… so depraved… he was being fucked like animals fucked each other. Many times he had seen a drake push a duck to the ground and mount her just like this…

The surface of the water was being shaken by the rhythm of Tatpho’s thrusts, but he could still see his reflection, his face wavy and distorted… his neck… his collar. It was red, dark red like blood or wine…

———

His omega, his lovely omega.

Tatpho had never imagined he would ever have a male omega for himself—male omegas who made it to breeding age must be one in a thousand, and he knew he wasn’t his father’s favourite, by a long shot. Still, he was absolutely determined to have an omega, and was pretty sure that the clan was at least powerful and rich enough to get him an unbonded female omega. So his fantasies had always been female omegas. Never a male omega. Definitely never a barbarian male omega.

But now that they were bonded, now that they had been through a heat together, he was finding it difficult even to remember having found Pieter hideous. He can’t have actually thought that, not really, that was insane; he must have merely been upset with his father for being so high-handed as usual.

Pieter was just beautiful, so soft and so pale; round and fertile, sweet, _ delicate, _ not weak and pathetic as Tatpho had first thought. His soft, wild hair like leaves in the autumn, his eyes blue like the waves of Tatpho’s name. _ Tat pho, _“attain the waves,” and now he really had reached them.

This match was fate.

Tatpho had not planned to fuck Pieter again so soon, he had merely meant to tease him by teaching him the words for cock and cunt, but when Pieter’s little cock had stiffened at his touch and his cunt had let his fingers just slide in like that…

_ “Je wil me… _ tch, your heat’s over, but you’re still horny?” he teased, very pleased indeed. _ “Je zei. _ I want your cock. _ Je zei.” _

Pieter was squirming on his fingers. His scent was no longer thick with his heat but it was still wonderfully erotic. “I… I went—”

“Want,” Tatpho corrected, feeling gloriously in control.

“I want… your cock!” Pieter keened, and if his cock could have gotten any harder…!

He turned Pieter around, pushed him forward to bend over and angle his cunt properly for Tatpho to take him. Tatpho was tall by southern standards but even so, Pieter was only slightly shorter… and he was an omega…

_ Our sons will be so tall… they’ll be strong men… _

In the present, Pieter’s height meant that fucking him standing was easy. It felt so good… but other than making an exquisite cry when he first entered him, he was silent, Tatpho suddenly realized, and stopped at once, half-in and half-out. “Pieter? _ Goed, niet goed?” _

_ “...niet goed,” _came a quiet, scared voice.

Tatpho pulled out at once. _ “Pijn?” _

_ “Niet pijn… _I’m sorry…” Pieter looked so ashamed as Tatpho pulled him up and facing him.

_ “Niet _ I’m sorry,” Tatpho said with a smile he hoped was reassuring, taking hold of Pieter gently… oh, there were goosebumps on his arms… Tatpho felt like a complete idiot. Pieter was cold, of course! What kind of shitty alpha… Pieter shouldn’t need to tell him things like this, but he had to know that he _ could _ tell him if he needed to. _ “Niet goed, je zei. Je zei, je zei. Ik zorg voor jou, goed?” _

To Tatpho’s great relief, Pieter smiled a little. _ “Goed.” _

“We’ll get in the bath,” Tatpho said with gestures to help him, and they did so.

It was a nice soak, despite the dull ache of his blue balls.

When they got out, they separated, though it tore at Tatpho’s heart to see Pieter’s distress at being led away by servants, especially when he said, “Husband?”

_ He remembered, he’s going to do so well, he’s so clever and adorable… _

_ “Goed, goed, _Pieter,” Tatpho said, and was heartened when Pieter seemed to calm a little at this.

As he went to be dressed in his own room, there was a servant there who was not his own.

“Your lord father has heard the heat is over, and wants you and your bride at dinner.”


	3. Chapter 3

When Tatpho went to dinner, Pieter was not there yet, but he was left a wide spot next to him at the table, so that was reassuring. He did not immediately go to it, however. Rather than his usual ordinary expression of respect, he went to his father’s feet, knelt, and kowtowed, rose, knelt, kowtowed again, and then once more.

“So you are grateful now,” his father said with a smirk in his voice. “You were always a quick learner, even as a little boy.”

“I am deeply grateful, o father,” Tatpho said, still on his knees with his head bent forward.

He heard a profound sigh. “Get up.”

As Tatpho went to the table, he saw everyone else there take notice of something behind him, and turned to see Pieter being led in, with Ah Gim next to him.

The way his collar peeped out in the front… Pieter’s hair only went slightly past his shoulders, not long enough for any of the full updos, so it had been merely braided and pinned up. Tatpho had to swallow hard when Pieter went to kowtow to his father and Tatpho saw him from the back. The deep red of the collar looked breathtaking against the pale, pale white of his skin, and then the low backslung collar in a rich red… perfection.

Europeans absolutely hated to kowtow, it was a recurring issue that most of them refused to do so in any and all contexts, but Pieter showed zero resistance, submissive, if awkward, in his movements. Tatpho saw that his father was very pleased.

“Take him to the table,” he told Ah Gim.

———

Pieter’s face twisted with dismay when he saw that his place had been set with chopsticks. “I can’t use these,” he whispered to Ah Gim.

There was laughter from the warlord, with polite echoing laughter around the table that made Pieter redder than ever, and Tatpho and Ah Gim, on either side of him, set about teaching him to eat with chopsticks.

Ah Gim was the more helpful, both because he could speak fairly good Dutch and because Tatpho’s touch flustered him.

Being able to focus on learning to use the chopsticks was a relief. It gave him something to focus on so that he could avoid as much as possible seeing how every single person in the room stared at him. So had every person he had passed on his way through the palace.

He was really hungry, an extreme motivation to learn to get the food to his mouth. Tatpho praised him whenever he managed it, which only made him feel foolish. He’d seen tiny children using chopsticks far better than this.

The soup was not particularly to his tastes, but he had thirds of it just for the ease of being able to use a spoon.

The warlord spoke a great deal, his husband and the other people in the room only a little.

“My lord says you get married tomorrow,” Ah Gim told him towards the end. “So I teach you tonight what to do.”

Pieter chewed and swallowed. “Is it difficult?”

“Not difficult,” said Ah Gim, and then something across him to Tatpho, who said something back.

“After is a big party,” said Ah Gim. “You don’t need do anything, yeah? Just eat. Your husband get very drunk!”

Pieter did not like the sound of that at all, but he was in no position to object.

Then the warlord said something to his son, who said something back, and then something to Ah Gim, who told Pieter:

“Your husband will present you to his mother after dinner.”

“She’s not here?” Pieter asked.

“Only principle wives eat with the family,” Ah Gim explained. “Young master’s mother is second wife.”

“How many in the family?”

Ah Gim rattled off an astonishing number of names of wives, concubines, and sons.

“My husband is the oldest?”

“Not at all,” said Ah Gim, “but he is oldest alpha. Only other alphas are Tatsin…” Ah Gim trailed off and looked pointedly down the table, and Pieter saw another youth who looked the same age as himself and Tatpho. “He only seventeen… ah, that is Chinese age.. Sixteen, Dutch age.”

Tatsin was looking at Pieter with open admiration that bordered on leering. Pieter flushed and turned quickly back to Ah Gim. “How old is my husband?”

“Twenty, Chinese age. Adult. Eighteen, I think, Dutch age; he was born right before New Year, I remember well, my lord was never so generous to us at New Year than that year, when he got his first alpha boy!” Ah Gim laughed nostalgically. “Ah, anyway. Other alpha is Tattsing. But he not here. Sick, always sick. And he is only nine. Their mother first wife, she passed away. She was omega, like you. There were other alpha boys, some from concubine, but none still around. So young master and his brother very special to my lord.” Ah Gim paused a moment, and then said in a lower voice that sounded as if he was not sure he should reveal this, “Brother more special. But. My lord give you to young master, because he is adult, under our ways, he is right age to marry. My lord care very much about do things correctly. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“My lord likes omegas,” Ah Gim said. “His omega daughters get everything best, very spoiled. I think he will spoil you too, maybe.”

Pieter tried to smile at this but it wasn’t at all convincing. He put his chopsticks down.

“You eat enough?” said Ah Gim, after swallowing another bite.

Pieter nodded.

“Chinese we say,  _ tsiahpa lah,  _ you try.”

_ “Tsiahpa lah,”  _ said Pieter, and startled when the warlord laughed. Pieter hadn’t realized he was paying attention to him.

_ “Sinpu tsiok khiau e!”  _ Koxinga said, and there was again the echoing laughter around the table.

“My lord says you are very clever,” said Ah Gim.

“What do I say?”

"You say  _ bue,  _ anytime someone say something nice to you, you say  _ bue,"  _ Ah Gim said. "It means 'no, I'm not.'"

Pieter lowered his head and said fervently,  _ "Bue, bue." _

———

The meeting with his mother could not have gone better, all things considered. His mother had  _ hated _ the omega who displaced her, who had displaced her so thoroughly that even when she had been dead for years her husband did not raise her back to principle wife but continued to treat her as little better than a concubine in dignity and worse than a concubine in favour; while he had nights with some of his young concubines, he never asked for her.

Likewise she hated her husband's unmarried omega daughters, who were indeed indulged and cosseted. Only one had been married off so far, and her husband had foregone the absolute best matches in favour of one that he thought would make his daughter happy; her own daughters, all betas, had not received the same treatment at all, but were sold like chattel as second or third wives to the highest bidder.

However, her hatred for omegas warred here with her pride in her alpha son. To receive an omega male as a bride was extraordinary among alphas and she knew that. That her son, rather than the son of the hated rival, had received this boon, was a great achievement. 

Moreover, Pieter seemed to have no idea that he ought to be nervous about meeting his mother in law, no concept that a mother in law was the bride’s mortal enemy. Instead he was baldly, adorably eager to meet her; it crossed the language barrier effortlessly.

“I miss my mother very much,” Pieter said through Ah Gim, in a way that would have melted a harder heart than Tatpho’s mother’s.

Was his mother still alive, Tatpho’s mother inquired through Ah Gim? Pieter said that he hoped she was well.

“I had a picture of her, but it was lost.” Even Ah Gim looked sad, translating this. Pieter also had five sisters, all older, with similarly strange names: Hanna, Maud, Susanne, Doortje, and Grietje.

His mother was not stupid, and Tatpho knew her well, and she knew him. Of course she saw her son’s obvious devotion to his omega, and she knew that the bond between an alpha and his omega was always intense. There was only one smart choice for her own survival: to get Pieter on her side, to make him like her and encourage Tatpho to treat her well.

If she attempted to make Tatpho choose between them, soon even she would lose.

Tatpho would have liked to fuck and knot his omega again that night, but he knew it would be a long and stressful day, so instead he simply purred him to sleep, and the content smell of his omega soon had him sleeping soundly as well.

———-

Tatpho was glad that Pieter could not understand the ribald humour of his friends at the wedding banquet; it meant he could laugh at it without fear of upsetting his bride.

The wine flowed, and faster for him than anyone else, as he had to do toasts.

Finding wedding clothes to fit Pieter at such short notice had been a challenge, he was so tall by omega standards, so the clothes he was wearing were a little short; and he had to wear regular men’s shoes because his feet were unbound, in fact his feet were even bigger than Tatpho’s; the combination of the two meant that quite a lot of people were staring at his feet.

Tatpho didn’t care that Pieter didn’t have lotus feet. Though like most men in his culture he found tiny feet erotic, Pieter was Pieter and that was that. European women didn’t bind their feet either, did they? Like the Hakka or the Formosan native women. It would be an absurd thing to get upset about.

His friends and brothers commented on it plenty, however. “With those big feet,” a half-brother said, “you’ll need to keep him satisfied or he’ll outrun you.”

“That isn’t a problem,” Tatpho smirked, and tossed back another cup of wine. “I’ll keep his stomach too big to run away.”

———

It was an absolutely awful day.

If he hadn’t already been going to hell for letting a man put a child into him, he was definitely going there now, because he had meekly made offerings to the terrifying looking Chinese idols when instructed to do so.

Then came the “party”, or rather an opportunity for seemingly everyone in the city to come and gawk at the trophy Koxinga had stolen for his son from the Dutch.

Ah Gim was more interested in the wedding food and wine than in talking to Pieter and had soon passed out entirely.

“It’s okay if you cry,” Ah Gim had slurred out at one point on the way to unconsciousness, “brides always do.”

Pieter didn’t want to do what brides always did. It was an intense struggle, especially because he could tell very well that his new husband and the young men clustered around Tatpho as they went from table to table were talking about him.

The alpha half-brother—Tatsin?—came up to him at one point when his husband was nowhere to be seen and said,  _ “Ah So tsin bile. Koko tsiann ho’un.” _

Pieter, naturally, had not the faintest idea what this meant, and simply smiled nervously in the face of his new brother-in-law’s hungry gaze and tried,  _ “bue, bue.” _

Pieter would not have thought the youth could look any more lustful, but he looked absolutely wolffish when he heard Pieter speak so docilely. Reflexively Pieter made the submission posture, dropping his eyes and tilting up his chin, out of fear; he wasn’t used to being treated like this, he had always been an ordinary boy to other males before this. He managed to just catch himself from releasing distress pheromones.

“Haa…” his brother-in-law’s voice said, and then Pieter heard a growl.

———

“Tatsin,” growled Tatpho, “do you need something?”

Tatsin didn’t back down. He was already taller than Tatpho and he used his height to advantage as he smiled with all his teeth showing. “Koko’s [big brother’s] omega was smiling at me, so I came over to say hello.”

Tatpho knew that was a damn lie. “I saw you walk over to talk to him.”

Tatsin showed no sign of guilt at being caught in a lie. “I told him he’s very pretty, and that Koko is a lucky man. What’s wrong with that? It’s your wedding day and you’re already worried your bride will stray?”

“I’m not worried about  _ him,”  _ Tatpho snarled, aggression pheromones flaring. The rest of the hall had gone silent watching the two heirs vie with each other.

“Koko finds his little brother such a threat?” Tatsin taunted. “I’m not even of age yet, but you’re worried I’m going to steal your consort?”

“Just back off!”

Laughter made both brothers straighten and then humble their posture. It was their father’s absolute angriest laugh.

“Tatpho,” Koxinga said when he strode up to the uneasy trio, “are you picking a fight with your brother?”

“It’s not Koko’s fault,” Tatsin hastened to interject, “he was busy being a good groom, and I suppose his bride was a little lonely, the way he smiled at me… I just came over to greet him and Koko got the wrong idea.”

“Tatpho,” his father said tightly before Tatpho could interject that his brother was a damn liar, “make sure your consort realizes that his smiles are to be reserved for you only. Take him back to your room now.”

———

Pieter tried to keep up with Tatpho but his husband knew where he was going in the dark and he didn’t, plus Pieter was terrified. He didn’t know exactly what had happened but his husband reeked of aggression pheromones and alcohol, a combination that had his heart hammering against his chest.

They got into a room, Tatpho pulling him in behind him, and sliding the door closed with a loud bang that made Pieter startle, and then Tatpho put his hand to Pieter’s neck. Though his grip was loose and his fingers only, Pieter didn’t dare try to pull out of it.

_ “Tsit e amkun si wa e,”  _ he growled.  _ “Li to si wa e! Li bei sai tit—” _

Pieter’s knees buckled and his neck dropped out of Tatpho’s grip anyway as he fell to his knees. Being growled at by his alpha was possibly the worst thing he had ever experienced in his life. His whole body was thrumming like he was the physical incarnation of failure and disappointment. Being beaten by his father was better than this.

He couldn’t even speak as he cowered on the floor and wanted to die.

———

Tatpho was so frustrated as he pulled Pieter to their wing of the palace. Tatsin was jealous,  _ damn _ jealous, jealous enough to try to fuck with him like that at his fucking wedding. The half-brothers had long been rivals but it had always been Tatpho striving to catch up with Tatsin in their father’s favour, knowing it was hopeless yet unable to quit. Tatsin had always acted indifferent to the point that an outside observer might think he was totally unthreatened by Tatpho.

This proved otherwise, like Tatpho had always known. It was absolutely killing Tatsin that Tatpho had beaten him in anything, but especially something as fundamental to an alpha’s self-image as having an omega. Their ultra-Confucian father may insist that an older brother be married before a younger and that Tatsin had not yet reached the right marrying age at all, but Tatsin definitely wasn’t having it.

And Pieter had been a sitting duck for it! Tatpho had failed him, left him open and now because of that Tatsin had been able to slander Pieter as a slut to their father under the guise of concern for Tatpho.

Tatsin had completely won the encounter, Tatpho had lost all the face, had been driven out of his own wedding banquet!

And yet how was he supposed to make Pieter understand!

It was so. Fucking. Frustrating!

He banged the door to his room closed and whirled to face Pieter. He didn’t smell even a trace of distress pheromones from him, he didn’t smell any pheromones at all… did Pieter not get the trouble they had just gotten into?!

The sight of Pieter tilting his chin up and lowering his gaze like that to Tatsin… his blood was boiling. His hand shot out to touch the neck that his omega had exposed to his brother.

“This neck is mine.  _ You _ are mine!” he growled, even though he knew Pieter wouldn’t be able to understand. “You can’t just—”

He’d intended to finish that sentence with  _ show your neck to other alphas _ but his fingers were sliding upwards over Pieter’s face because his omega was dropping to his knees.

Tatpho blinked, his vision adjusting to the darkness. Now that the typhoon was over, they had pulled down the extra protection and much more of the moonlight was getting in. He looked down. Pieter was cowering at his feet, shaking all over, and flooding the room with intense distress pheromones, Tatpho had never smelled anything like it. He stepped back, his stomach protested, and he had only enough time to turn away before he was vomiting up everything in his stomach—probably for the best, as it was mostly more wine.

When he finished vomiting, in that moment of trembling emptiness, he suddenly realized:

_ Oh fucking shit. I growled at Pieter. I growled at Pieter! _

He was unsteady on his feet and probably smelled like vomit but he stumbled over to where Pieter was still silently shaking on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he purred, “I’m sorry, Pieter, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

Pieter wasn’t crying, but as soon as Tatpho lifted him up to try to hold him he took in a sudden, hiccupy breath and then burst into sobs.

_ “Ik wil naar huis,”  _ he whimpered into his husband’s chest.  _ “Ik wil naar huis!” _

“I know,” said Tatpho. This was all his fault… and Tatsin’s… damn it,  _ damn  _ it. And there was no way he’d be able to get back at his brother, not without it backfiring twofold on Tatpho… and he and Pieter were one entity now. Anything that hurt him would hurt Pieter.

In the present, Tatpho rubbed Pieter’s back and kept purring until his sobs quieted and he slumped into his alpha’s arms, and Tatpho realized he was asleep.

Tatpho lifted Pieter into the bed awkwardly and undressed him slowly out of the heavy wedding garments, covered him with a blanket, and then undressed himself and got into bed.

_ I have Pieter. I have Pieter… that’s all the revenge I need on Tatsin, and there’s nothing he can do to take Pieter away from me. Pieter is mine. _

The room still reeked of vomit and Pieter’s distress pheromones, and it took a long time for Tatpho to fall asleep.

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In a universe that had alpha/beta/omega dynamics, language would have evolved differently, and there would be more words for things. I can easily imagine, for example, that in Chinese, there might be the word wife 妻子 but with a different radical instead of the woman radical to use for a married male omega; in English, we have some gender neutral words like spouse, partner, and consort, but presumably an ABO universe would have even more.
> 
> I've often thought that in an ABO universe of course every culture would have their own native words for alpha/beta/omega as well. For ease of convention I've used alpha/beta/omega here, but I'd like to humbly suggest the use of 甲 for alpha and 癸 for omega, for the first and last heavenly stem, which are used in Chinese culture similarly to an alphabet for ordering lists.
> 
> Anyway, there are some awkward wordings here as I struggle to balance clarity with succinctness and naturalness when it comes to depicting how a traditional Chinese household, with its strict hierarchies of gender and birth order, might address a male omega in the "wife" role. Simply having them called a wife and leaving it at that, as many omegaverse works do, seems insufficient to me, given how much Chinese culture has historically valued accuracy and specificity of names.
> 
> Welp if you're just here for the drama this doesn't matter much either way!

The day after the wedding, Pieter was shown his new quarters as principal consort of a high ranking son.

He was given his own servant who had served a Dutchman before and knew a few words—yes sir, no sir, here, at once. She was a pregnant woman in her twenties and very cheerful. Pieter was still not used to being dressed and found the whole process intensely embarrassing.

He spent as much time as he possibly could during the day hiding in his room. At first he had ventured out into the rest of Tatpho’s quarters, but then he ended up meeting up with a girl about the same age as him, dressed in cotton instead of silk, whose first reaction to seeing him was utter rage but who then smoothed her face out and bowed deeply, saying, _ “Hujin ho bo?” _

Ah Gim was with Pieter, and translated for him: “This is your husband’s concubine, she asks—”

“His concubine!” Pieter exclaimed.

Ah Gim chuckled. “Ah, yes, nobody said, huh? Chinese men like to have many wives and concubines, normal.”

“Is… she the only one?”

“Mm, yes, for now, only one. She had son, but it died.” Ah Gim shrugged. “You don’t have much to worry about, young master never liked her much anyway. Anyway, she asks how you are, greets you respectfully. Ha, but she’s jealous, isn’t she? You can ignore her if you want.” Ah Gim laughed, amused.

“How do I call her?” Pieter asked uneasily, as the concubine stood there with her face tight with the effort of remaining in respectful attitude.

“You can just say _ oi _, like with the servant,” Ah Gim said. “If she gets nasty with you, Tatpho will teach her.”

“Can you tell her I’m tired and I want to rest,” Pieter said, wanting to flee from this uncomfortable situation.

The concubine watched them go with furious eyes. 

———

On a very beautiful day Pieter let himself be persuaded by Ah Gim to go with him to the palace’s garden to learn the names of plants.

Ah Gim was teaching him the word for leaf when he suddenly looked past Pieter’s shoulder and muttered something in Chinese, then said in a low voice, “Young master’s brother is coming this way. Be very careful.”

“Careful how?! What am I supposed to do?”

“Don’t give him attention but don’t ignore him.”

“What?!” said Pieter.

Ah Gim was at a loss to explain, especially in Dutch. “Don’t smile at him or attract him, but don’t be rude. But don’t be too submissive either, he will love that… don’t turn, he’s almost here. Maybe he’ll just walk past.”

_ Don’t, don’t, what do I _ do _ then?! _

_ “Ah So ho bo?” _ A cheerful, confident voice said from behind Pieter. Pieter didn’t know if he should turn or not. He didn’t want to face Tatsin, but he also felt like he could feel Tatsin’s gaze on the back of his neck. _ “Khinnajit thinnkhi bebai neh?” _

“Young second master asks if you’re well, and says the weather is nice, isn’t it,” Ah Gim translated.

_ Don’t attract him but don’t be rude… _Pieter turned and saw Tatsin standing there. Objectively he was a more handsome youth than Tatpho but his smile was nothing but terrifying to Pieter, who flushed and kept his chin down despite his body’s self-preserving instinct to expose his neck and ask for mercy. Tatpho had, through Ah Gim, made it crystal clear that Pieter was never under any circumstances to expose his neck to anyone, but especially not to his brother.

“I… I don’t know what to say, I don’t know how to act,” Pieter pleaded to Ah Gim, not sure even where to direct his eyes. Would looking Tatsin in the eyes be alluring? Would lowering his gaze to his feet be submissive? Would looking at Ah Gim instead be rude to Tatsin? He ended up staring at his own hands. “Ah Gim, please help me, I’m frightened of him.”

Tatsin laughed before Ah Gim could respond. Blood was humming in Pieter’s ears and making the strange Chinese words Tatsin was speaking even more impossible to hear.

Ah Gim translated with disapproval. “He says his brother’s consort is very shy and cute, and can he help you with anything?”

“How do I get out of this?” Pieter asked desperately. “Tell him… tell him that my husband takes care of everything I need.”

Ah Gim made an approving noise and translated this to Tatsin.

Tatsin said something back and then strolled off, and Pieter’s heartrate began to subside; but then he startled as he felt a hand on his back.

“I understand Dutch,” a mischievous voice whispered against the back of his neck, and then a wave of alpha pheromones swept over him, coating him in them. “You would be happier with me. What a shame…”

Then the hand lifted, and Tatsin sauntered off, whistling so that Pieter could hear him for a long time.

As soon as Tatsin was out of sight Ah Gim leapt up. “We need to go back inside, you need to wash. If anyone finds you smelling like him…”

Pieter didn’t care about that at the moment. He wanted to scratch at his own skin to get the smell off of him, it made him feel so dirty and yet… and yet his body was getting wet, God help him!

———

Tatpho stopped when he got into his quarters, his nostrils flaring.

“Was _ he _ here?!” He growled at Ah Gim, who was squatting on the floor. “Where is my consort?!”

Ah Gim raised his hands in a conciliatory way and explained what happened from start to finish.

“I couldn’t hear entirely what he said to young master's consort but I think it was Dutch. Did young master know he could speak Dutch? He definitely said _ wat jammer _ at the end, it means ‘what a shame’. And then he coated young master's consort in his pheromones before he walked off again.”

“No, I didn’t know,” Tatpho said. “Did you see anyone on the way back?”

“We got lucky. Only your own servants, but there was nothing to be done about that. The bride’s being washed now.”

Tatpho sent the servants away as soon as he got in. Pieter flushed and exposed his neck when he saw Tatpho, and while it thrilled him and aroused him, he was perceptive enough to realize that Pieter was doing it because he was afraid of Tatpho's reaction to smelling Tatsin on him. And with good reason, after how horribly Tatpho had treated him on their wedding night.

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” he soothed and purred. “Ah Gim told me.”

The smell was almost washed away from Pieter already but Tatpho began washing him all over again anyway. He didn’t want to smell his brother on Pieter even a little bit. And he wanted to make his consort smell like him instead.

Inside and outside.

Pieter had relaxed as Tatpho cleaned him, but when his husband stepped away and began to undress, Pieter clutched onto himself.

_ “Niet bang,” _ Tatpho assured him, “don’t be scared. I’ll take care of you, _ ik zorg voor jou.” _

Once naked, he took Pieter in his arms standing and kissed him, releasing pheromones to wash over him at the same time, and Pieter moaned into his kiss, clung onto his back and rubbed his body against Tatpho’s hardening cock.

_ My needy fox… so cute. All mine. _

Once again the height was perfect, he only had to lower his hips a little to guide himself into Pieter’s cunt. He pulled one of Pieter’s legs up by the thigh to wrap around his hips as he thrust in and out.

“Tatpho,” keened Pieter, tilting his chin up with his eyes closed, “Tatpho bite me please.”

Tatpho grabbed onto the back of Pieter’s hair and sank his fangs into Pieter’s front gland, pumping his pheromones into Pieter that way as well.

“Feels good, feels good! Tatpho! My cunt feels good!”

Tatpho released the bite and gave one rough lick to the trickle of blood left behind, speeding up his hips. “Gonna cum for your alpha?”

_ “Ja, ja… _ so good, _ ik… _ah, mmm, anh! Coming!”

Tatpho turned his head and bit down on the gland on the other side as his omega came around him. “Good boy,” he praised, “such a good boy for me, squeezing me so tightly. You’re mine. Gonna fill you again. _ Je wil me?” _

_ “Ja! Ik wil u!” _

“You want my cock?”

“I want your cock,” Pieter agreed. _ “Alstublieft… _please give me… note…”

“Note?” 

“Note… in me, your cock…”

“Knot,” Tatpho corrected. “You want my knot… mm, so cute.” He kissed Pieter’s lips again, enjoying his blushing, desperate expression. “Then cum again.”

Pieter was jerking his own hips now, making the impact more intense, and he reached between them and started to rub his own cock so that he would come faster, get his alpha’s knot sooner.

As soon as Tatpho felt Pieter’s cum splashing hot onto his stomach again, he groaned and let the knot he’d been holding back go, gripping the soft curves of Pieter’s ass as he kept his omega close and shot his cum deep inside him again.

He moaned wordlessly during the height of the pleasure, but as the orgasm crested and waned he indulged himself in speaking without caring if Pieter could understand again.

“My fox, my fox,” he hummed with pleasure, “my cute fox, my clever fox, you’ve put a spell on me, haven’t you? I don’t mind, because you’re mine. Just give me little kits, my fox, and I’m happy with you. You’re so sweet. You smell just right now, all covered in my scent.”

“Tatpho?” Pieter said, uneasily.

“Never mind,” Tatpho soothed. _ “Goed, goed Pieter.” _

———

When they had cleaned off the remnants of their lovemaking, soaked, and redressed, it was about time for dinner.

“Young master says to act happy at dinner, to look at young master and only young master,” Ah Gim said as they walked.

“Act happy…” Pieter did not know how to act happy. He had tried all his youth to act tough and sober, to show neither sorrow nor amusement. Nor did he feel at all happy about any of this. Tatpho gave him extreme sexual pleasure and seemed to want to protect him, and Pieter’s instinct said to seek shelter in his protection, but it was always from a feeling of fear.

A kinsman called out to Tatpho, and he walked over to speak with him, which gave Pieter the chance to ask Ah Gim something minor that had been nagging at him these few weeks of his marriage.

“What’s _ holi?” _ Pieter asked Ah Gim.

Ah Gim scratched the bald spot on his head. “Holi?”

“Tat-I mean, Ang E always calls me his holi or his little holi, _ wa e siau holi, _or something like that…”

“Oh, _ siau hooli, _ahaha… you know, I don’t know the Dutch word… it’s a little animal with fur the colour of your hair, I don’t know if you have them in Europe… a little like a cat or a dog, and we think they are very clever.”

“A fox,” said Pieter with a sigh. “It eats chickens and so on?”

“Yes, that is it! _Hooli, _or _lau hooli. _A fox.”

Tatpho walked back to them and they went on.

————

The evening went very well at first. His father was in a bit of a mood, silent and withdrawn, which depressed conversation across the hall. For Tatpho and Pieter this was a boon.

Pieter kept giving him little tiny smiles, brief sideglances and slight leans. Every little movement was so subtle, but it was the very subtlety of it that made it so erotic, and yet there was nothing slutty or shameless about Pieter’s behaviour. On the contrary, he was acting like such an ideal, refined consort that anyone ought to look at Tatpho with envy.

Tatsin absolutely was, and Tatpho gloried in it.

Then the message arrived.

Tatke’s battle with the Dutch was going very badly, and Tatke had been injured.

Koxinga chose Tatpho to go and fix things.

Of course Tatpho would never be happy to be leaving Pieter, but he was a good fighter and a good commander. Were it not for Tatsin, with a youthful feeling of invincibility, he would not have minded heading out to battle again.

But Tatsin was staying in Takao, and if he was determined to get at Pieter...

————

Tatpho fucked Pieter roughly that night, as if he wanted to leave marks to last as long as possible.

As they lay together knotted afterwards, Pieter was wondering if it would be alright to ask such a stupid little question when his husband was about to go off to war…

War to destroy his own countrymen. How was Pieter supposed to feel about this? What result could he want?

“Don’t leave here,” his husband said in slow Chinese, studying Pieter’s face to make sure he understood. “When I’m not here, you always stay here. Eat here, sleep here, don’t leave. Understand?”

“I understand,” Pieter said in his own awkward Chinese. “I won’t go outside.”

Tatpho rubbed at Pieter’s still basically flat stomach. It had only been four or five weeks, after all. “Maybe, when I come back, this is bigger.”

Pieter forced a smile, and Tatpho smiled back and kissed him, playing with his red hair.

“I’ll miss you, my little fox,” he sighed, and Pieter said before lost his nerve:

“Little fox… is good? Or bad?”

Tatpho blinked, then chuckled. “Hmm… hmm…”

He wasn’t answering, and that felt like the answer that Pieter suspected. Foxes didn’t exactly have a great reputation in Europe, either.

“Clever,” Tatpho said at last, “pretty, I think… sometimes bad… foxes have _ moolik." _

_ "Moolik?" _questioned Pieter, and Tatpho sighed.

"Ask Ah Gim," he said dismissively, and then smiled a little. "Foxes are foxes, but my fox is only good for me, right? Don't be scared. You're mine."

Tatpho didn't pull out of him when his knot went down, he merely pulled Pieter close and purred until the omega fell asleep in his arms.

The next day he found out when he woke up that Tatpho was already gone.

As he promised his husband, Pieter stayed within his husband's section of the palace all that day, and ate alone. It was a very boring and lonely existence but at least it wasn't scary or painful.

In the evening, a servant brought Pieter a present: a little landscape painting of a winter scene in a Dutch town, the river frozen over and people ice skating upon it, with a lot of detail. Pieter stared at it, utterly mesmerized, reached to take it from the servant without really paying attention to what the servant was saying.

The servant pressed a folded piece of paper into Pieter's hand and departed.

Pieter took the painting to his bedroom at once, and set it up on a table to look at it for quite some time before he remembered the little note and opened it up.

It was written in Dutch.

_ Pieter must be very lonely. I want to help his loneliness. _

There was no signature, but with a sinking feeling, Pieter brought the paper to his nose.

It definitely smelled like Tatsin. He hadn't been obvious about scenting it, but it was there and unmistakable.

He ought to ask Ah Gim what to do, he knew that, but he was afraid that Ah Gim would tell him to get rid of the painting or even destroy it, and he didn't want to do that.

He did burn the note, and told himself that if he didn't leave his rooms, nothing bad could happen from keeping the painting.

Could wanting one little piece of home for himself be so terrible?

It made sleeping alone much, much easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Moolik_ is 魔力 magic power.
> 
> Fox spirits are notably associated with shape changing and with taking on seductive human forms. "Fox spirit 狐狸精" has been a perennial Chinese term to deride a woman as a slut.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (This story is not accurate to the historical events of the Siege of Fort Zeelandia, so don't mistake anything here for real world facts.)

More than a week passed before another gift arrived, long enough for Pieter to be startled when a servant appeared again, this time in the morning.

The servant handed over a little wooden box with business like lack of emotion and a clear wish to get things over with, which left Pieter no time to think of how to reject it.

He took the box inside his own room and opened it.

Little pigs… his eyes widened. Marzipan pigs! He hadn’t had them since the Christmas before he left Europe.

What time of year was it now? The Chinese calendar was confusing. It was definitely cold. Maybe it was Christmas already, back home… tears pricked at his eyes.

Was his mother well? Was his uncle making sure she was well taken care of? At least if he was not, certainly one of his sisters would take her in.

Did she know that her son was still alive?

Maybe it was better if she thought he was dead, instead of living in shame as the chattel of a Chinese… his mother was such a devout woman. She had read to him the stories of martyrs many times. Women who died rather than lose their chastity, and men who died rather than bow to false gods.

Pieter wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. He was just a cowardly little slut, like his father had always known.

He picked up a pig and sniffed the delicious sweet almond aroma, then bit off the head. 

Where had Tatsin gotten them? He looked around to double check that his room was shut up tightly, then closed his eyes and indulged in eating the whole box, licking his fingertips when he was done.

At the bottom of the box was another folded note.

_ So, you like sweets? I thought so. Tell me if you want more. _

Pieter bit his lip.

He did want more. He already wished he hadn’t eaten them all so quickly.

But there was no way he was going to ask Tatsin for more. That would cost something he could not pay.

He burned the note and box.

———

A few days after that, there was another little painting, this one a still life of fruit and game. Pieter hung it in his room as well.

_ I’ll make your room as beautiful as you are. _

Then another week, and Pieter was summoned to the main part of the palace to be looked at by his father-in-law’s physician.

Because he had been in self imposed quarantine for so long, seeing only Ah Gim, his own servants, and occasionally Tatpho’s concubine, all of which had grown used to his looks, he had nearly forgotten what a freak he was here. People stared, laughed, pointed.

_ The young master’s omega. That Dutch boy. Look at his collar. Can you smell him? Look at his hair! Look at his eyes. He’s so ugly, isn’t he? _

Pieter had never seen a Chinese doctor before… actually he had never seen any kind of doctor before. Ah Gim was there to translate, but chiefly for the benefit of the doctor. He dutifully stuck out his tongue, let the doctor sniff his breath and body and feel his wrist, abdomen, and back, and answered all his questions, including embarrassing ones about his bowels. Apparently his servants had given the doctor samples of his urine and feces already.

At the end the doctor, Ah Gim, and Pieter went to report to Koxinga.

At the end of the long report, which Pieter couldn’t follow at all, Koxinga nodded and seemed pleased. The doctor was dismissed.

“Come with me,” said Koxinga, and Ah Gim didn’t follow.

“You learn quickly,” Koxinga said, sitting with Pieter in the pavillion of a Chinese style garden.

Pieter looked out at the lotuses on the water. “Not at all.”

“Do you need anything? Don’t just say no. Your husband’s not here.”

Pieter still thought he should say no, but he was torn. If he had something to entertain him, maybe he would be able to properly reject Tatsin’s gifts.

“You do want something,” Koxinga said, amused. “Didn’t Ah Gim tell you I spoil my omegas? What is it? New clothes? Food?”

Pieter shook his head. 

“You’re bored, then.”

Pieter nodded, blushing.

Koxinga abruptly reached over and patted at Pieter’s abdomen, startling him. “You won’t be bored when you’ve had my grandson. I’ll get you something for now.”

He dismissed Pieter, which put him rather at a loss for how to get back alone. He put his hand on his abdomen.

_ His grandson… so there’s really a baby inside me? It doesn’t feel real. _

As he tried to find his way, he ran into the last person he wanted to see.

“Hello, Ah So,” said Tatsin in Chinese, nearly scaring him to death because Tatsin was standing right around a corner and Pieter had walked into him. The alpha caught hold of Pieter’s shoulders and stopped him from backing away. “Are you lost?” he asked in Dutch.

“I… no, I’m alright, thank you,” Pieter answered in Chinese, well aware that someone could be listening.

“Your Chinese is getting very good,” said Tatsin in Dutch, still not letting him go. “But if you’re not lost, tell me where you think you are and which way you need to go? If you can answer, I’ll let you be on your way.”

Pieter had no idea how to answer that, and he knew Tatsin knew it. The alpha smiled down at him with his little fangs showing.

“You don’t have to try to get along by yourself,” Tatsin scolded in an affectionate way. “What kind of little brother wouldn’t care for his brother’s consort? Take my arm.”

Pieter couldn’t think of a way to get out of it. He let Tatsin put his hand into the crook of Tatsin’s elbow and they strolled along slowly.

“How is your health?” Tatsin said in Dutch.

“Fine,” Pieter answered in Chinese.

“And my brother’s child?” Dutch.

“Fine.” Chinese.

Tatsin laughed and spoke in Chinese. “Why won’t you speak Dutch to me?”

“I need to practice my Chinese,” said Pieter.

“But I need to practice my Dutch,” Tatsin said. “Besides, if we speak in Dutch, we can be private.” He looked at Pieter’s red cheeks and smiled even wider. “Or is that what frightens you?”

Pieter didn’t answer.

“I only want to be your friend,” said Tatsin in Dutch. “Don’t you think you need a friend?”

“How did you learn Dutch?” Pieter said, still in Chinese.

“My father thought it would be useful. He didn’t expect the Dutch to be driven away so easily, he wanted his heir to be able to negotiate with them, to understand what they said amongst themselves. That’s why I don’t understand why he didn’t give you to me.” Tatsin’s smile was gone now. “My brother didn’t want you, you know. He told my father to take you for himself, as a concubine. That’s how little he valued you.”

Pieter didn’t know what to say. He remembered very well how disgusted and repulsed Tatpho had seemed that first day, before he bit Pieter, so he could believe it… but afterwards…

“If it had been me,” Tatsin said, “I would never have made you cry.”

“How did you…” Pieter said in Dutch before he could stop himself.

“It’s obvious how unhappy you’ve been,” Tatsin said. “Have my gifts helped at all?”

Pieter felt trapped. If he said no, that would surely be rude, but if he said yes…

“Answer in Dutch,” Tatsin wheedled. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Pieter burst out in Dutch, “I don’t want to get in trouble… I just want to go home…”

There was a long silence, and when Pieter dared to look up at Tatsin, his smile was different, more sincere and even apologetic.

“I got you in trouble, didn’t I?” Tatsin said. “My brother is jealous, right? I hope he didn’t hurt you because of me. I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but… I’m lonely, too.”

Pieter had let himself look up at Tatsin’s face, and now he felt caught in a trap as the apologetic gaze became lustful.

“You don’t even know how precious you are,” Tatsin said. “I won’t get you into trouble.” He grinned again. “Come on, don’t you think you’d enjoy having someone to speak Dutch to?”

“I can’t,” Pieter said in Chinese, dropping his gaze.

He heard Tatsin sigh, and they were silent until they got to Tatpho’s wing of the palace.

Pieter let go of Tatsin’s arm, bowed, and spoke in Dutch before Tatsin could. “Please understand, I liked the gifts very much, but I shouldn’t accept any more of them.”

“Hm,” said Tatsin. “Is that so?”

Pieter fidgeted with his cuff, and suddenly found his hand taken, lifted, and kissed in the European manner. Again, Pieter looked at Tatsin’s face before he could stop himself and again he blushed as that face smiled at him.

“I’m not giving up. You are so sweet, shy, and lovely… and you are very, very weak, aren’t you? Yes, lower your eyes just like that, perfect…” Tatsin let Pieter’s hand go. “I can be patient. Look forward to my next gift.”

Pieter darted inside without properly saying goodbye. There was nothing proper about this.

———

A few days after this, servants showed up with big boxes of Dutch books. Pieter had just about gathered his nerve to reject them when Koxinga appeared in person to see how Pieter liked the gifts.

Pieter sat and drank tea with his father-in-law, trying not to tremble as he realized how close he had almost come to revealing that he’d been accepting gifts from Tatsin. He was in too deep, it was too late now.

“I’ll have another gift for you, but it’s not ready yet,” said Koxinga before he departed.

More gifts arrived over the next weeks, sometimes from Tatsin and sometimes from Koxinga, and Pieter never knew who it was from until he got the gift inside. If it was from Tatsin there would be a provocative, unsigned note with his scent lightly on it.

Considered as a set, Tatsin’s gifts tended to be more romantic, and Koxinga’s more practical, but there was no way for Pieter to turn any individual gift down because he couldn’t risk offending Koxinga.

Besides, his bedroom was becoming a real little shrine of his home land. He spent almost all day, apart from the time that Ah Gim tutored him in Chinese, gazing at the pictures and thinking about home.

When about a month had passed since Tatpho had left, another gift arrived, another box of candy, this time liquorice drops.

_ I’ll give you what you really want even when you can’t ask for it. _

Having learned from the pigs, Pieter ate these slowly, one per day, often while studying the little details of the winter landscape in his room.

Snow, and ice, and going outside with his ice skates, chasing after his sisters. Going inside after and his mother kissing his cold cheeks; being called _ Peetje, _and warming himself by the fire, playing with toy soldiers and horses, while his mother hummed and did needlework.

He rolled the little candy around in his mouth and pressed his hand to the small swelling of his abdomen.

_ But even if I could go home it would never be the same now, would it, _ he thought, looking at a detail of a husband and wife walking together along the bank of the frozen river. _ I would be shunned for my shame or locked away. Back home, people like me just don’t exist. At least I never heard anyone talk of an omega boy, and father said I was a freak. But here they seem to… the Chinese here all know about omega boys and they even esteem them… why? _

_ Who can I ask? _

That was when Koxinga triumphantly brought the certain cure to his boredom: a tiny puppy.

Pieter had always been afraid of dogs but a little thing like this couldn’t scare him. It was silky haired, its fur black with grey on its belly. There was a young lady with Koxinga whom the warlord introduced as his daughter Huihui, the breeder of the puppy.

Huihui was fifteen in Chinese reckoning, beautifully dressed in orange silk, and an omega. She prattled rapidly and cheerfully at Pieter as they drank tea, and he could tell that it was about how to care for the puppy, but he couldn’t follow it at all.

Tatsin showed up at the end, which made Pieter internally freak out, yet the alpha paid him absolutely no mind, instead addressing Huihui, who was apparently his sister by the same mother. The girl went off with him joyfully.

_ “Simpu,” _Koxinga addressed him when the siblings were gone, the warlord’s voice hard, “you shouldn’t stare at another alpha like that.”

Pieter flushed. He _ had _ been staring, but only because he was sure that Tatsin was going to say something to him at any second. “I’m sorry.”

His father in law stepped closer, and Pieter flinched and pulled his chin down with all his might to avoid giving into the reflex to expose as he smelled the aggression pheromones off of Koxinga.

“Don’t cause trouble.”

“I, I, I, I don’t want to,” Pieter whimpered, and Koxinga let out a noise whose meaning Pieter couldn’t decipher and left.

Pieter went back inside. The puppy licked at his face and romped in his lap.

“Dropje,” Pieter said, and the puppy wagged its little tail. “You look like a little candy, don’t you? So I’ll call you Dropje.” He rubbed behind the puppy’s ears. “I suppose you’re supposed to help me learn to be a good mother? Is that what I’m going to be? Dropje, what do you think?”

Dropje was a good companion for his loneliness. He even made him feel more secure. But there was one big drawback to the little dog, which was that it wanted to go outside to do his business. And that meant seeing people and being seen by them, including, inevitably…

“Ah So,” Tatsin called out cheerfully on a cold day.

Pieter’s heart sank, but he turned around, not smiling, but not frowning, not looking Tatsin in the eye, but not refusing to look at him. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Tatsin said in Chinese, which surprised Pieter. “Have you heard? Your husband is doing very well against the Dutch. They say he’s killed hundreds by his own hands.”

“Oh,” said Pieter, gripping onto Dropje’s lead tightly.

Dropje was barking at Tatsin, and the alpha laughed, leaned down, and picked him up. “My mother loved these dogs,” he said, turning the dog onto its back and rubbing its belly affectionately. “When she passed away, my sister Kiki took over with them, and when my sister married, Huihui took over. It’s good that they are teaching you to do it. Then when Huihui marries we will keep the dogs in the family.”

It was a completely innocuous subject, such a contrast to hearing about how many Dutch his husband was slaying. Pieter hastened to keep it on this topic. “Do you like dogs?”

“These dogs? Of course,” Tatsin chuckled, and handed the dog to Pieter. “They’re so silly, aren’t they?”

“Silly?” said Pieter.

“Silly,” Tatsin translated into Dutch, misinterpreting what Pieter meant, and then continued in Dutch, “They always act so bold, so tough, as if they were really wild animals, but if one ever ran into the forest, it would be eaten the same day.” He said this with such a smile. “Or even in the village! We eat dogs here, you know; you’ve probably eaten some already without knowing it. Does that disgust you?”

“I… I knew already about fragrant meat,” Pieter said in Chinese, using the native euphemism for dog meat.

“Ah, I should have expected that,” Tatsin said fondly in Dutch. “You’ve adapted so well to our ways, though you must be homesick. Sometimes I wonder what you would look like if you lived there… you couldn’t look as nice as you do now. Our dress suits you perfectly. Magnificent.”

Pieter didn’t know how to answer this, and he could feel his cheeks getting hotter.

Tatsin stepped back and leaned against the wall. “Can I do anything for you, Ah So? Answer any questions, get you anything?”

“Do you…” Pieter said in Dutch, despite his better judgment, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around, and it had been hounding his thoughts. “Do you know… omegas, _ boy _ omegas, are there more like me, in Europe?”

Tatsin looked surprised. “Of course, not many, but some. You didn’t know?”

“I thought it was just me, before…” Pieter swallowed and skipped over exactly when it was that he realized he was not the only omega man. “It was always a secret. I thought there was just something wrong with me, that I was a woman with a man’s body or a man with—”

_ With a woman’s cunt, _he stopped himself saying just in time.

“They kept you so stupid and innocent?” Tatsin said. “Of course I asked my tutor to tell me all about how it was in Europe. Any young alpha would be interested in that.” He grinned. “Especially me, I was already sure I wouldn’t settle for anything but an omega male as my consort. He said if it has a cunt it’s a woman. Europeans are really foolish and wasteful.”

“I don’t understand,” Pieter said uneasily, gripping onto Dropje a little tightly.

“I mean that we think of people like you as boys, omega boys, but still boys, and we recognize how special you are for giving your husbands sons, but in Europe they think of you as girls—no, worse than that, as inferior, defective versions of girls.” Tatsin tilted his head. “Why did your father raise you as a boy, anyway? Do you know?”

Pieter sighed. “My uncle… he wanted me to inherit, instead of my uncle.”

“Rivalry between brothers… well, that completely explains it,” said Tatsin, smirking. “Something similar happens here too, sometimes… families will try to pretend an alpha girl is a boy and then a man. Usually they get away with it, too, but I don’t know your father expected to get away with this. What did he do during your heats?”

“Locked me away and said I was ill,” said Pieter.

“That must have been awful,” Tatsin said, and took a step forward again. The movement reminded Pieter all at once who he was talking to. Pieter froze as Tatsin stepped forward again, almost close enough to touch him. “Poor Pieter, lonely and empty without a cock or a knot… just like now—”

“I should go,” Pieter interrupted and ran away.

His heart was beating fast when he got into his bedroom, Dropje whining because he wanted to stay out longer.

_ Tatsin called me by my name. _

———

“You should send your brother back to Takao,” the doctor said when he had finished reporting to Tatpho about the most recent developments of illnesses, injuries, and deaths among both their own forces and the prisoners. “If the outbreak reaches him—”

“No,” said Tatpho. “Dismissed.”

His father’s lieutenant Lau Ong smirked at him as the doctor bowed and left, but his words were actually respectful. “You didn’t justify it to him.”

“He’s just the doctor,” said Tatpho, “why would I?”

“You’re developing,” Lau Ong approved. “Are you ready to speak to that defector now?”

Tatpho frowned. “Yes, bring him in.”

Tatpho brooded as he waited for Lau Ong to fetch the defector, pressing his fingers to the bandage under his left eye, even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to touch it.

_ If it gets infected it could spread and you’ll lose the eye or worse. _

Tatpho cursed the doctor’s mother’s cunt and pulled his hand away.

The Dutch hadn’t been daunted by the typhoon at all, and they had received reinforcements from Indonesia. His brother had gotten shot in the leg and lost a lot of blood, though he was relatively stable now, two months after his injury. Still, Tatpho knew better than to send him to Takao, no matter what epidemics were raging among the ordinary men or their prisoners. His father would not receive his brother well. It was not beyond imagining that if Tatke arrived on a day when their father was very irritated, that he might order Tatke executed for incompetence.

Their father was a strong Confucian, but he revered moral principle above family ties. He had not surrendered to the Manchu, even though it meant that his father and mother would be killed. And he had put unruly or disappointing kinsmen to death by his own order before.

If Tatke came back when the Dutch had been subdued, that would be another story.

It was looking like it would be a very long slog. They had set up their own fortifications, and they had gained the support of the lowland natives, who were fed up with the Dutch religious education requirements and seemed to think that they would do better under the Han. But Jiatlanjia was well defended, the Dutch well-armed, and the ten warships and the thousand men that had arrived from Indonesia definitely complicated matters.

Tatpho had managed one daring victory, when a company set out from the Dutch fort in search of some provisions, they had been alerted by a native and arrived in time to rout them almost entirely, though of the prisoners they had taken most were now diseased. That the Dutch had needed to go out for provisions of some kind was an excellent sign that a siege against them could succeed.

Tatpho had gotten the wound to his upper cheek in that fight, grappling with a soldier who suddenly decided that surrender no longer seemed like a good idea and who pulled out a knife to try to get free. Another of his soldiers came to Tatpho’s aid and decapitated the bastard, but it was a near thing...

He roused himself from these thoughts as Lau Ong brought in the defector. It was a young man, not much older than Tatpho, dressed in what looked to be very nice armour, if dirty.

The man bowed and said in passable pidgin Chinese, “My name Hans Rubik. I am not Dutch, I am German. Dutch are crazy, no chance. I don’t know what you want, but I can give you help, big help. If I help, you let me go, give me boat and men, go to Philippines.”

Tatpho fought off a smile. Something about this man… “You think your help big enough for a boat? That’s a lot to ask. We know Dutch have no chance, we don’t need help.”

“But it take much time,” Rubik argued back, seemingly at ease. “Dutch in Indonesia are very strong, very strong. They can keep sending. Your fort very weak. Defend and attack at the same time, no good. If you can take fort now, they give up.”

“And your help can give me the fort now?”

“Give you now, very fast,” Rubik said, crossing his arms.

“You said you don’t know what we want,” Tatpho said. “You think we are crazy too, huh?”

“Dutch only want money. There is plenty of money, why fight the Dutch? You let them stay, they give you many things, everybody gets rich, what’s wrong with that?”

Tatpho nicked his tongue to keep the laugh off. This young man was amusing, and he wasn’t wrong, either. “You know we are Chinese. In China, we have big problem, foreigners from north come down and try to take our whole country. My father fight them. We need our own place, fight them more.” Tatpho pointed down at the ground. “Here.”

Rubik sighed. “But Dutch could sell you weapons…! _ Ach, zum Teufel… _ I want out. This help is good help. You want it?”

“If it’s good help, I’ll send you to the Philippines,” Tatpho promised.

Rubik nodded with satisfaction, reached into his pants, seemingly into his own balls before the startled face of Tatpho, and pulled out a folded paper. He waved this victoriously at Tatpho. “Map.”

“We have maps,” said Tatpho.

“Not this map,” Rubik said. “This map is of a _ second _ fort. The mountain redoubt, Provintia. They are helpless. You threaten them, they give up right away. Then you can aim cannons down from the mountain.

Tatpho took the unfortunately moist map and studied it.

He no longer tried to keep back his smile.

“Lau Ong,” he called, “shall we make an offering of peace?”

“Certainly, young master. What offering shall we make?”

“Hmm. I’m sure they would like their prisoners back… but in what condition to start with...”

Rubik shifted uneasily from foot to foot as Tatpho laughed, his fangs glistening.

———

Pieter accepted the basket from the servant with a distinct feeling of unease.

Did it smell more strongly of Tatsin’s pheromones than usual? Or was he just being paranoid, because of Tatsin’s lurid words the day before?

He brought the basket of walnuts inside, and asked his servant to bring him tea and a nutcracker and bin for shells.

Pieter pulled out a volume of poetry, something pleasant enough and absorbing to flip through the pages while cracking walnuts and sipping tea.

As he absent-mindedly reached into the basket for another walnut, his fingers gripped onto something that was hard but cold and smooth to the touch.

Pieter turned and frowned as he saw that he was touching… a piece of glass? Gingerly, he pulled it up while making sure he didn’t knock any of the walnuts to the ground.

It was large and heavy, a cylinder of solid glass, it seemed, but oddly shaped, with a tapered end like…

Pieter nearly dropped it as he realized that he was holding a dildo.

He looked back in the basket and dug around with his free hand to fish out the inevitable note. As it came out, he realized that this was why he’d had the sense that the gift smelled more strongly like Tatsin than usual. He had definitely, deliberately put his scent onto the note.

_ I want to help you in everything. _

The glass was warming in his hand as he held it.

_ I should destroy it, I should smash it and bury it… _

_ Why? How will he even know if I use it, though? I could just deny having used it… _

_ Why am I playing dumb with myself… he wants me to use it while smelling him so that I’ll want him even more… _

_ Even more… _

_ I do want him to fuck me already, don’t I? _

Pieter could feel himself getting wet, his cock hardening.

_ Do I really want him to fuck me? I’m scared of him. _

_ Maybe a slut like me is fine with anyone. _

_ I don’t really want him to fuck me, I just want to feel better. I’m scared. I’m worried he’s going to find a way to fuck me no matter what. I’m worried I’m going to like it. _

_ I didn’t want Tatpho to fuck me and then I loved it so much I cried. Wouldn’t Tatsin be the same? _

But as soon as he thought of Tatpho, his heart and his whole body began to yearn for him.

_ I want my alpha. I want my alpha back, I’m so scared, please come and keep me safe… I’m so wet and ready for you, alpha, why won’t you come back, hurry… _

Pieter fumbled open his clothes, stumbled to the bed, the glass dildo in hand, Tatsin’s note left where it had fluttered forgotten to the floor.

He rubbed his cock with one hand and eased the tip of the glass dildo against his dripping hole. It was hard and cold at first touch, though it warmed as he worked the tip in and out of himself, encouraging himself to produce more slick.

“Mm… mmm, ah, ngh…” He hadn’t masturbated for too long, he couldn’t hold the sounds back. He grabbed a blanket and stuffed the corner into his teeth to muffle his moans and bite back his wails as he worked the dildo inside himself, deeper and deeper.

_ Tatpho… Tatpho it feels good! Fuck me, fuck me more! _

“Mmmphf! Nngh! Mmpf!”

_ I’m so horny, Tatpho! I know I’m just a weak little slut but I want you to fuck me! I want it to be you! _

The blanket slipped out of his teeth as he came the second time, he was panting.

“Gotta stop… oh God, why can’t I stop,” he keened. “I want your knot…. I want your knot… Tatpho!”

After he said his husband’s name, he heard a sudden thump come from the exterior wall.

Pieter yanked the dildo out of himself, hid it beneath the blanket, and hastily retied his clothes before getting off the bed and darting to the window…

Just in time to see the back of a tall man walking away.

Tatsin.

Pieter backed away from the window and back to the bed, then jumped out of the bed to destroy the note, then got back in the bed and wrapped himself in blankets, then kicked off the blankets and called for the servant.

“I want Dropje,” he said, “and I want more blankets, and I want more pillows.”

Even cocooned in a ridiculous amount of blankets and pillows, with Dropje happily cuddling with him, Pieter felt utterly exposed and vulnerable.

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: attempted sexual assault.

The negotiation for the surrender of Provintia took a tedious amount of time to get going.

First there was bickering between both sides about whether the Europeans had to kneel, as always.

“Let them stand, it’s a negotiation,” Tatpho ordered. “I want this finished quickly. They’ll be gone, so what does it matter that they won’t submit?”

Then there was a great deal of rapid arguing in some European language back and forth between Rubik and Valentin, when the latter, the captain of the redoubt, saw that Rubik was there.

“Enough,” Tatpho interrupted testily, “tell him he’s here to talk with me!”

Valentin had brought his own interpreter, and Tatpho was willing to use the young woman as an intermediary. She looked mixed blood and very frightened, probably about what would happen to her if this negotiation went sour.

“If we lay down our arms and surrender, you let all of us, including the women and children, leave for Fort Zeelandia. You let the Fort take us in.”

“Bad offer,” laughed Tatpho. “You think your fort will risk opening up to let you in? They would know we would rush in too, and all of you would get massacred between us. Try again.”

“Then let us go to the boats, those that come from Indonesia.”

“That’s a more reasonable offer,” said Tatpho, “but still, I’d rather not give the Dutch back their men when there’s still fighting left. How many of you are there?”

They did not want to tell him.

“Hmm, if it’s that low, then maybe it’s worth it, to gain such a strategic location without losing my own strength,” Tatpho pondered aloud.

“You sent us ten mutilated men to threaten us. What’s happened to the other prisoners you’ve captured? From Sakam?”

“Sakam didn’t surrender like this; we routed them. There was no negotiation. So we’ve used them as we wish… if you want some of those who are left, we can include them in the negotiation, but not for nothing.”

“The women and children—we want them spared with us.”

“Children I may be able to arrange something, though it may be troublesome to find them… but as for women…. I cannot take a man’s wife or concubine back.” Tatpho said this without shame, because he felt no shame about it. They had won those women in battle, and they were booty to distribute as much as the other goods they had seized.

“The commander of Sakam, Johannes van der Stel, is he one of your prisoners?”

“He offended my father and was executed for it.”

“What about his son, Pieter van der Stel? He is a youth, and sickly. Does he still live?”

Tatpho let his teeth show in his smile. “An omega has far too much worth to let go at any price.”

The Dutchman was flabbergasted, and there was a brief conversation between him and the young woman before she said, awkwardly, “Is there some mistake—Pieter is a boy, not an omega woman.”

“I didn’t say he was an omega woman. His father pretended he was a beta boy, but he is an omega, and he has my collar on his neck and my child in his womb. I won’t let him go, so don’t waste time by asking about it. Let’s get this settled now. You, and your families, and whatever children I can find among our prisoners, if any—I let you go to the boats, without your weapons but with whatever possessions you can carry. Is that a deal?”

——-

_ “Simpu, _you asked to see me,” said Koxinga.

Pieter was a little daunted. He’d thought this was a good idea, but Koxinga was looking so stern and forbidding to him.

“I… maybe I am foolish…” Pieter began nervously

“Hm. Definitely foolish,” said Koxinga.

_ Well, I’m committed now. _“My husband has been gone a long time, so… Takuann [father-in-law], I have a scarf that I put my scent on, and wrapped it here… does Takuann think my husband would want it?”

Pieter held up the scarf wrapped in layers of other fabric politely with both hands, his body inclined, waiting for Koxinga’s reaction.

And waiting.

And waiting…

The warlord was still right in front of him, not moving.

_ Did I make a big mistake? What do I do? _

A sudden big sigh from the warlord made Pieter startle, but then Koxinga reached out and took the package with two hands.

“He wants it,” he said quietly. “I’ll get it to him in the New Year. _ Simpu… _ you should have a Chinese name.”

Pieter looked up, perplexed at what seemed a non sequitur. “Ah?”

“I should call you by your name, not _ simpu, _but I don’t like that Dutch name. Too ugly, doesn’t suit you. I will choose you a better name.”

Pieter struggled but he couldn’t keep the dismay entirely off his face. He quickly bowed low and bit the inside of his cheek to sober himself.

“You don’t want me to give you a name?” His voice sounded amused, but with Koxinga amusement could mean anger.

“My mother chose the name Pieter, so… so I like it, even if it’s ugly…”

“Hn. Why Pieter?” The Dutch word came out of Koxinga’s mouth with distaste.

“It means stone, because she wanted…” Pieter searched his limited vocabulary in Chinese. “I don’t know how to say it, I forget the word… not strong, but…not break...”

“Have_ tongthau, _ have _ nai,” _Koxinga supplied helpfully, but as Pieter didn’t know either word, he could only redden further in response.

“Your mother is very wise,” said Koxinga. “Yes, you have _ nai, _ you are _ nai’ing. _ Like _ Tsioh _ [stone]. I’ll call you Tsioh’a. That is the same, but Chinese. Better.”

For Koxinga to agree to use a translated form of Pieter was as good as he could hope for.

_ “Nai’ing?” _ Ah Gim said when Pieter worriedly asked if it was a good thing later. “Oh, a very good thing! It means, hmm, well, _ ing _ is use, _ nai’ing _ means you can use something over and over, doesn’t break.”

Pieter nodded slowly and returned to painstakingly doing his calligraphy practice, writing the character 永,_ ing, _forever.

———

Everything was cleaned, all preparations were made: Chinese New Year had come.

Pieter had been fitted for new clothes to debut on the holiday. He asked the servants to go and looked at himself in the mirror for a long time. He was about halfway through his pregnancy and his father-in-law had declared that he was ready to switch to a special style of omega male clothes, _ tsiohloh hok, _literally “pomegranate clothes”, a pretty term for an extremely embarrassing appearance.

The ordinary dress for omega males, at least in the upper class, was similar to the formal wear of other men, with the striking exception of the collar, which was exaggerated, stiffened, and backslung so that from the back everyone could see whether the omega was marked and if so what the mark looked like. This was also the major difference between omega female dress and that of other women.

Apart from the collar, the rest of the clothing was loose fitting, modest, and comfortable, and Pieter had gotten used to it. He preferred it, even, compared to European dress, at least his particular favourites, like a muted green Taoist coat with big, big sleeves. It felt like getting to wear a dressing gown everywhere. Pieter even had his own jade charms that he wore from a belt, and though it couldn’t have been proper etiquette, he used them to self-soothe, running his fingers over the intricate edges to calm himself whenever he was anxious, which was most of the time.

In pregnancy, however, this loose fitting garb apparently didn’t make it sufficiently obvious for the alpha’s pride that his omega male consort was indeed pregnant. Hence this… thing… that he was looking at in the mirror and had been assured was completely appropriate and suitable—the imperial consort would wear something just like this, they said…

A long sleeved shirt, short, that ended right where his bump began. Tied over the shirt, in a tight band across his chest, the skirt; bold and dramatic, with the ribbon tied in the front to further draw the eye to the bump.

The over all effect was the visual equivalent of hiring a small boy to follow the omega around, banging on a cymbal and yelling, “This man isn’t _ fat, _ he’s _ pregnant!” _over and over and over.

Also, it was bright red. Pieter did not look good in bright red. Combined with the dark red of his bond collar, the orange-rust of his hair, and the inevitable pink of his cheeks when being gawked at, the assault on the eye could not get more over the top.

Moreover, since it was winter, he had to wear extra coverings over his bump and under the skirt, with cinnamon and other medicinal warming herbs in pockets, so his bump was even bigger. It made him look full term already.

For someone who was shy and preferred to escape notice, it was the outfit from hell.

Pieter let out a long sigh and put his hand on his belly. The baby kicked pretty regularly, but right now it was was quiet. Night time seemed to be its preferred time to fuss.

_ I’m carrying Koxinga’s grandchild… and I’m a Dutchman. No matter what I wore, I would be stared at, _ he told himself philosophically. _ Wearing this will please Koxinga. I need to keep his favour. _

Resolute, he went out to join the festivities.

He had seen the Chinese who lived in and around his father’s fort-town celebrate their New Year in previous years, but never been involved with them, certainly not this centrally.

The whole House of Koxinga had turned out in force for it, from the lowliest sonless concubine to Koxinga himself.

Ah Gim was nowhere to be seen, but after over four months of total immersion and daily tutoring by Ah Gim, Pieter’s language skills were sufficient for navigating the ritual phrases of good luck and prosperity. He had also been provided with a purse full of red envelopes, and anyone with those was popular with children at New Year.

_ "Ni-ni-tschun, Ah So!" _a young half-brother of Tatpho said, eagerly reaching for an envelope.

Pieter answered with another ritual phrase of luck for the coming year and handed over an envelope, then startled as a burst of firecrackers went off somewhere nearby, and music began to play.

_ “Langsai!” _ a child somewhere yelled, and the little boy Pieter had just given an envelope to said, _ “Langsai, langsai! _Ah So, come watch, come watch!”

The little boy tugged at his sleeve and Pieter went with him, and they arrived at a gathering crowd where acrobats were performing, including a quartet of lion dancers with grotesque masks. Pieter watched the performances with simple awe and enjoyment, and very happily handed some red envelopes to the performer who came around to collect donations at the end.

“You looked adorable, watching that,” said a familiar voice in Dutch, very close by. While Pieter had been absorbed in the dancers, Tatsin had sidled his way right beside him, standing down wind so as not to alert him with his scent.

Pieter swallowed, then reached into his sleeve, pulled out a red envelope, and held it out to Tatsin. “Happy New Year, Tatsin.”

Tatsin looked surprised and didn’t take the envelope.

Pieter gave a small, polite smile, and said with innocence, “Since I am married, I give unmarried children red envelopes, right?”

“Unmarried children…” Tatsin lost his smile, but then stepped very close to Pieter under the guise of taking the envelope and said softly, “Don’t try to be too cute, Pieter. Shall I show you what a child I am? Come with me.”

He said this last in a tone Pieter had never heard directed at him before. It went straight to his spine and his feet moved to follow Tatsin as the alpha walked off, while his conscious mind was reeling as if caught in a net.

_ This is… this is alpha command… he alpha commanded me… what do I do, how do I stop it? _

When Pieter finally managed to get his limbs under his conscious control, he realized that Tatsin had led him somewhere he didn’t recognize at all. They were no longer outside, that was obvious.

Tatsin turned his head when he heard Pieter’s footsteps stop. “I said come with me.”

The command was stronger this time and it was a horrible feeling. _ You’re not my alpha! I don’t want to do this! _

Pieter was able to break free of it more quickly, but he didn’t stop following Tatsin anyway. He had no idea where he was, after all, and if Tatsin wanted to use direct physical force to drag him somewhere he was completely capable of it.

Even so, Pieter stopped short when he entered a room and realized it was a bedroom, and would have fled if Tatsin hadn’t quickly circled behind him and shut the door.

“You made a mistake, Pieter,” Tatsin said, all pretense of suave seducer gone now. “A weak little omega slut like you, trying to act superior to me? I was too patient with you. I wanted to let you choose this, but I see now that you need discipline.”

Pieter let out distress pheromones, he couldn’t help it, and to his dismay he saw Tatsin breathing them in and getting aroused by them. “I’m your brother’s consort,” Pieter tried, backing away towards the window.

“You certainly are,” Tatsin said, raking his gaze over Pieter. “You look so fucking sexy with a child in you, how can you expect me to control myself?”

Pieter whimpered as Tatsin strode up to him. When Pieter defensively put up his arms, Tatsin swiftly grabbed hold of both wrists in one hand and put his other hand on Pieter’s belly.

“Stop, it hurts,” Pieter begged because it really was hurting his wrists, but Tatsin ignored this, keeping his grip tight.

“This should be _ my _ child,” he growled. _ “I _should have had you… but I can have you now.”

“No,” cried Pieter. “Tatsin—”

“Alpha. Call me alpha,” Tatsin commanded, pulling at the ribbon on Pieter’s skirt. He let go of Pieter’s wrists, ignoring Pieter’s pushes.

Pieter’s head was throbbing. “Alpha,” he obeyed, even as he hated it, but at least he hadn’t told him what else to say. “Alpha, I can’t do this, Koxinga will kill me.”

“Nobody needs to know. Everyone’s gone now, even the servants. They won’t be back for hours. You can be as loud as you want while I’m fucking you…” Having rid Pieter of his skirt, Tatsin was pulling off Pieter’s undergarments even more impatiently.

“I don’t want to be loud, I don’t want to do this at all,” Pieter suddenly stopped struggling and ducked down and to the side, managing to get away, but Tatsin reacted fast and reached the door first, putting his body against it.

Pieter was shaking with fear, covering his genitalia with his hands as he backed away from Tatsin before he could be grabbed.

Tatsin didn’t immediately move this time, staying against the door. His face as he looked at Pieter was a little softer. “I don’t want this to hurt you. Think of the child and relax… you know you really want this. I’m going to make you feel so good… Just give yourself to me and nothing bad will happen.”

“He’ll kill me,” Pieter whimpered, and Tatsin smiled and began to purr, slowly walking towards Pieter.

“Father will never know, nobody will, if you just do as I say… if you resist me and make me really hurt you, how will you explain it? If you tell anyone about this, don’t you know you’re the only one who’ll be punished? I’ve made it clear to father over and over, how you keep trying to seduce your poor little brother-in-law… and lots of people saw us today, Pieter. Do you know what they saw? They saw me just walking, and you following me… you came here and seduced me with your scent, didn’t you… you _ slut…” _ Tatsin was almost upon him now, and Pieter couldn’t stop staring at the sharp teeth of his grin. Every nerve in his body was telling him to bare his neck to this alpha and beg for mercy.

But he was not an animal, after all. Tatsin was not going to show him mercy now, and if Pieter gave in to this, it would keep happening, and eventually…

_ This is it. After everything I’ve put up with… _

_ This is the point where I would rather die now. _

Pieter suddenly ran. He got to the door and wrenched it open as Tatsin commanded, “Stop right there,” but though he nearly froze, his adrenaline and his intense desire to disobey kept him going. It was only once he kept running that Tatsin swore and gave chase.

Pieter knew that he would probably be caught before anyone heard him, and he didn’t know where to go, but he screamed, “Fire! Fire!” as best he could while running. Because of firecrackers and fireworks, the threat of fire at New Year was omnipresent, and this was his best guess at how to attract attention.

Like a miracle, he heard another voice yell back, “Fire?!” just as Tatsin managed to grab his fluttering sleeve, sending him tumbling to the ground.

“Fire! Fire! Fire!” Pieter screamed his voice hoarse, and he could hear more voices, and then there were people, and what a sight he must make to them: a foreign youth, with a Chinese top but no bottom at all, his naked ass on display as he cowered on the cold street, with Koxinga’s favourite son panting and standing over him.

“You little idiot,” Pieter heard Tatsin say tightly in Dutch as the scandalous scene attracted a crowd. “So you’d rather die than let me have you? So be it.”

———

Someone gave Pieter an ordinary man’s coat to cover his nakedness, and it felt odd to have something close against the back of his neck after so long…

He was trying to focus on this tiny, insignificant detail rather than the dire straits he was in, kneeling before Koxinga, with Tatsin kneeling nearby, and a lot of officials around.

Koxinga and Tatsin were talking and it was too fast and his heart too sick for his brain to follow it at all, he wasn’t even trying. That what Tatsin had told him would come to pass, he had no doubt at all.

The only question was, would they let him give birth first? He was pretty sure they would. He hoped they would.

_ Will they let me meet you before I die, will they tell me if you were a boy or a girl? I hope to God you’re an alpha boy, then they’ll take good care of you… please God, let my baby be an alpha boy… _

Koxinga was advancing on him with loud strides, and Pieter could no longer be distracted by anything. He squeezed his eyes shut, his chin went up as distress pheromones flooded out from him and he whimpered, and then there was a hand gripping him by the back of the hair.

Pieter yelped as the hand dragged him over a short distance until he was facing the kneeling Tatsin and then let him go.

“Open your eyes and look up,” Koxinga alpha commanded and Pieter did. He saw Tatsin, his expression sober but his eyes triumphant. “Do you _ tsikong _Tenn Tatsin of a crime against you?”

It must mean accuse. “I don’t know,” Pieter blurted, “I mean—I don’t know, he wanted—but I didn’t want it, I didn’t want it—”

“Did you _ kau’in _your husband’s brother?”

“I don’t know what that means!” Pieter began to cry, he couldn’t help it. “I wasn’t trying… I never wanted to do anything… please let my baby, at least...” He didn’t have the words in Chinese to beg for mercy.

Koxinga laughed. “How pitiable… Tatsin.”

Pieter could hear the satisfaction in Tatsin’s voice. “Yes, father?”

“Did you really think I was fool enough to think that my _ simpu _ was capable of being so _ kaubinphue?” _

There was silence. “I… of course you aren’t a fool, father…”

“No? But you must think I am one. Look at him! He’s the most submissive omega I’ve ever seen! You’re telling me he’s attempting to _ kabu _ you?! He’s so terrified he can’t even _ tsikong _you for what you really did try to do, isn’t that so?”

“Father… that’s not—”

“I’m wrong?” laughed Koxinga. “No, I’m not a fool! My _ simpu _ doesn’t even consider that I might believe him, he only asks me to let my grandchild live. He’s so _ khukhiam…” _Koxinga laughed harder. “Completely unlike you. You think I don’t notice how you’ve wanted him?”

“He _ kau’in _ me, father! I was helpless—”

“You were _ kaubinphue,” _ Koxinga said harshly. “Did you think you could escape the _ tinghuat _ for _ kan’im? _ Did you think I was as _ kaubinphue _ as you, to ignore such a crime?”

“It wasn’t my fault!” Tatsin shouted, surging to his feet. “He should have been mine to begin with! How could I resist—”

“Silence! Stop him. Bind him,” Koxinga ordered, and Pieter, his eyes still down, heard the struggle. “The law says the _ tinghuat _ is _ kiong,” _Koxinga thundered, “do it at once.”

Pieter had not stopped crying during any of this, and he was still crying when Koxinga had his bound hands untied and told him, neither kindly nor harshly, “Get up, Tsioh'a. Ah Gim, take him to his home.”

Pieter leaned on Ah Gim numbly, clutching the coat around himself as they went back to Tatpho’s home.

When they were there, Ah Gim turned to go.

“Ah Gim,” Pieter said morosely, “what’s going to happen to Tatsin? I didn’t understand everything.”

Ah Gim said, “Hm, _ kiong _ is…” He made a slashing gesture over his crotch. “Not a man anymore. And also, if he doesn’t kill himself, he will be a slave.”

“If he doesn’t kill himself,” Pieter repeated dully. He felt sick… he’d been terrified of Tatsin, and what Tatsin had tried to do to him was terrible, yet he felt no satisfaction about this bloody and humiliating mutilation. Why did any of it have to happen… why couldn’t he just have stayed home in Holland with his mother… “I understand, Ah Gim. See you later.”

Pieter went into his room, undressed, and put on sleeping clothes, though it was still daylight. He went to his little shrine of Dutch things and picked up the objects as if they had magic power, venerably, one at a time. An incomplete deck of cards, a little hand organ with broken bellows, a tarnished whistle… each one of them was inexpressibly precious to him.

_ Even though his intentions were so selfish and harmful, I just can’t hate him somehow… these mean so much to me, I don’t know how I would have gone on without these things… _

_ Well, if he’s gone, he’s gone… I can enjoy these things with a clear heart, now. _

Pieter smiled at a _ Lukas-Madonna _icon, running his finger along the wooden frame. The baby Jesus clung to his mother, who looked serene and untroubled. They both had red hair, like him.

———

“Your father is coming,” Lau Ong announced without preamble, coming into Tatpho’s room. “He’s coming with haste. So act with haste.”

“Right,” Tatpho said, blearily getting up and springing into action, while his mind tried to figure out why his father would suddenly come without advanced notice, during the New Year’s celebration when Takao must have been full of things calling for his attention.

He received his father in a situation of near, but not complete triumph. The taking of the redoubt Provintia had tilted the balance drastically in their favour, yet as long as the Dutch continued to receive relief from Indonesian ships, they stubbornly refused to surrender.

His father was more aloof and cold than Tatpho had ever seen. The young man thought he had done very well, yet though his father didn’t rebuke him, there was absolutely no approval either. Nor did he want to discuss the war in detail. Koxinga interrupted Tatpho’s report and said, “I can handle the war, I should have been doing so all along. You will go back to Takao and rule until I finish.”

“Rule…” Tatpho was flabbergasted. Being asked to fight and command in a war was something that was natural to him, but to be asked to take up civilian authority was something else. For one thing, it would be seen as definitely tapping Tatpho as his successor. Tatpho had assumed that part of why Tatpho had been sent to war and Tatsin kept at home was to aid Tatsin in gaining the true authority that would last once the war was over. Now his father was abruptly giving it to him? But he couldn’t question his father. “As my father commands.”

“Here, I was asked to give this to you,” Koxinga said. “When you open it, you’ll wish your boat could fly.”

Tatpho took it with respect and confusion and left, opening it once he was out of his father’s audience.

As he pulled open the top layers, he breathed in sharply and began pulling it apart faster, dropping the outer wrappings to the ground. As soon as he got to the innermost object, a scarf, he put it to his face and inhaled deeply.

_ Pieter… Pieter! You scented this for me, oh, my fox, my darling, my omega. I’m coming home, I’ll be inside you soon. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I left some Hokkien untranslated in the text to represent how much Pieter couldn't understand it, but here is what it means for the curious:
> 
> tsikong means accuse, just as Pieter guessed  
kau'in means entice, seduce  
kaubinphue means shameless  
kabu means to frame, falsely accuse  
khukhiam is humble, thinking little of oneself  
tinghuat is punishment  
kan'im is illicit sexual relations


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adding two chapters at once, so make sure you read the previous one first.

Dropje started barking, and Pieter opened his eyes, said, “Dropje, quiet,” in Dutch, and shut them again.

But Dropje didn’t stop barking, and Pieter heard other noises in the household.

He opened his eyes again and with petulance wriggled out of his lovely cocoon of pillows and blankets… it was just the right temperature and everything—

The door opened, and Dropje was truly going mad barking at the stranger in the doorway.

Though he couldn’t see him clearly in the darkness, Pieter recognized the scent.

“Tatpho,” he said, while almost at the same moment Tatpho said, “Pieter!”

Dropje barked again.

Tatpho looked down and muttered, “Why is a dog…”

“His name is Dropje… your father gave him to me,” Pieter said, and then in Dutch, “Dropje, enough, it’s fine.”

The dog huffed and leapt back up onto the bed.

Tatpho looked at Pieter again, startled. “Your Chinese is so good now…”

“I practiced, and… and many things happened… Tatpho, I need to tell you, but… but I’m scared…”

“Then don’t tell me now… get this dog out of here, I need to fuck you now.”

“You can take me to your room, right? If we put him out, he’ll…” Pieter paused, realizing he didn’t know how to say _ scratch at the door and whine _ in Chinese. “...he won’t be happy.”

Tatpho let out an amused huff at Pieter’s indulgence of this ridiculous little animal. “I would, but is my room ready?”

Pieter frowned. This objection could not be countered. He picked up Dropje and walked to the door, where Tatpho got out of his way, and set the dog a distance away from the door. With a pang of guilt, he hurried back inside, grabbed a cushion from his nest, and went back and placed it carefully in the floor so that Dropje at least had a softer and warmer surface to rest.

“Stay, Dropje. Stay.”

Dropje whined a little, but obeyed the command as Pieter closed the door.

———

Tatpho had observed this little domestic scene with a strange contentment in his heart. He’d been sure that when he got home he’d be so horny that he’d have his cock inside Pieter before he finished greeting him, yet… this was so nice, seeing Pieter being at home, like this…

But as Pieter turned from the closed door, he was standing so close.

Both of their eyes had adjusted somewhat at this point to the darkness, and Pieter said, in a shyer voice, “Oh, you’re taller than before…”

“Am I really?” A perfect excuse to close the distance between them and draw Pieter into his arms. “Hmm… or maybe you are shorter?”

“Of-of course not! No one gets shorter…” Pieter protested, and Tatpho laughed.

“I’m teasing you,” he said, caressing Pieter’s face. “You know this word ‘tease?’”

“Ah… I think I can guess…”

Pieter was wearing many layers of night clothes for the season, but even so… Tatpho breathed in roughly as he caressed the swell of his abdomen. “You grew here instead.”

“That was your fault too,” said Pieter, with a daring little smile.

“Ha… oh, my little fox…” Tatpho kissed Pieter, not as long nor as passionately as he would wish, because he needed to get his little fox back into bed.

Tatpho impatiently dug them out a space in Pieter’s nest. “Keep your clothes on, so you don’t get cold, I’ll just push them up and take you from behind.”

Pieter submitted to Tatpho’s guidance of him into hands and knees posture, but as Tatpho was untying his own robes and underwear to free his erection, Pieter said softly, “I… don’t really like… being fucked this way…”

“Oh? Why not?”

“It feels… _ vernederend, _I don’t know how to say it… like an animal, like I’m bad…” His voice was so soft Tatpho could barely hear it.

“Oh…” Tatpho laid down next to Pieter and took him into his arms, caressing the round cheek he loved so much. “You’re never bad to me. I don’t want you to feel bad about it… you’re beautiful and wonderful, no matter how I take you… and…” He rubbed Pieter’s belly again, this time savouring how it felt directly against the skin. “I don’t think I can take you on your back anymore…”

“I was stupid to say anything. Don’t worry about it,” said Pieter, pulling himself out of Tatpho’s embrace to get back on his hands and knees.

“You weren’t stupid at all. I told you to tell me when it isn’t good, I’m glad you told me. I want you to feel good, completely good. You make me feel that way.”

Pieter muttered something, his face turned away.

“What?”

“I said it does feel good,” he repeated, still very soft.

“Then say it louder…” he laughed and rubbed Pieter’s back, getting back up and into position behind him again, and not hesitating this time to undo Pieter’s underwear, letting the cloth fall to the bed. “Does this feel good?” he asked, skimming back and forth with his cock across Pieter’s slit, slicking himself up.

“Tatpho,” Pieter keened.

“Did you miss this?”

_ "Ja, ik... _I missed you, Tatpho..."

Tatpho's grip on Pieter's hips tightened. "You missed me?"

“I… I missed you so much, I… everything was bad, I was so scared…” He was crying, but when Tatpho pulled back he said emphatically, “Don’t stop, don’t leave me.”

“I’m not leaving you, but you’re crying…”

“I cry too much. Don’t mind me,” Pieter sobbed. “I want you to fuck me, Tatpho, only you. I really want it!”

_ I want only you. _It was what Tatpho had yearned to hear, he could not have resisted it under any circumstances. He fumbled his cockhead back to Pieter’s entrance and in. Pieter’s cunt felt as wonderful around him as his omega’s relieved moan sounded in Tatpho’s ears.

“Thank you,” Pieter wept as Tatpho fucked him.

“Pieter,” Tatpho groaned. This was too much… he kept his pace slow, leaned his body over Pieter’s and kissed his nape. “So good, Pieter, you are so precious… my omega.”

“Tatpho,” moaned Pieter.

“I’m here, it’s me, I’m inside you,” he said, pressing his body against Pieter’s back, flooding him with his pheromones. “Only me. You have me again.”

He heard the crying stop, and Pieter unsteadily balanced on one hand to wipe his face with his sleeve. “I’m sorry,” he sniffled. “I’m really pitiful.”

“I’ll fill you with me every day,” Tatpho promised, working his hips back and forth. He felt so needed, so important. “My sweet Pieter. I’m here.”

“Tatpho… I want…”

“Yes?”

“Harder…” Very quiet and embarrassed.

“Say it again.”

“Harder!”

Tatpho straightened back up and increased the power of his strokes, relishing the noise of his balls hitting against Pieter’s flesh, but kept the speed the same. “Like this?”

Pieter moaned in time with his bottoming out and gripped at the sheets. “Ah, ah, _ ja, ja… _but…”

“Tell me what you want. Faster?”

_ “Ja!” _

Tatpho immediately doubled his speed, and Pieter cried out, falling forward a little and turning his face sideways to pant his breaths as the thick cock pounded into his depths.

“So good, I’m… I’m…” Pieter keened, and Tatpho felt his cunt rippling around him as he came.

It had been too long, Tatpho was too pent up. He was pushing his hips in when he started cumming with barely any warning, and Pieter yelped because Tatpho had pushed to get his knot fully into Pieter’s body when it was already almost full size.

“Oh fuck,” said Tatpho, he couldn’t think, the pleasure was too intense, and he crashed forward onto Pieter’s back, making him cry out again, and then once more as he sank his teeth into Pieter’s back gland.

Pieter was breathing hard underneath him as his mind cleared.

“Are you alright? Did I hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” Pieter said, “It doesn’t matter.”

“...so I did hurt you…” Tatpho kissed the mark of his bite tenderly. “I’m sorry.”

“It was only a little… it still felt good, don’t worry.”

Tatpho eased them on their sides and nestled his nose in Pieter’s braid, breathing in their mingled scents. He grabbed a blanket from the side and put it over them both as best he could. “Are you cold?”

“I’m alright… I… Tatpho…”

“What?”

“My… how…” There was a silence. “...never mind.”

“You can ask me anything. I promise I won’t be angry.”

“The Dutch… are they all dead?” Pieter said sadly.

Tatpho thought about how to say it. “Some surrendered. We let those who surrendered go.”

“You’ll let them go?”

“Of course.”

“Back to Holland…” His voice held such yearning.

Tatpho’s knot was going down, but he held on to Pieter. “...do you want to send a letter with them?”

Pieter didn’t answer, and Tatpho didn’t want to know.

In a few minutes he pulled out of Pieter and fixed the blankets around them while Pieter silently retied his underwear and pulled down his nightclothes.

“Tatpho,” Pieter whispered when they had been still for a few minutes. “Are you still awake?”

“Yes.”

“The baby is moving... if you—”

He didn’t have to finish that question. Tatpho was instantly, eagerly pressing his hand against the bump. “Where? What do I do?”

Pieter guided Tatpho’s hand to an area at the top.

“I don’t feel anything.”

“You have to wait… that, did you feel that?”

“I felt it! Was it kicking?”

“I don’t know.”

“I guess you wouldn’t know, huh…” Tatpho laughed and kissed Pieter’s neck. “I’m so happy.”

Pieter smiled a little too, and the baby kicked again.

“Does it hurt? The baby moving?”

“Sometimes it’s… It’s…” Pieter tried to remember the word. “Noying…? Something like that. Because I can’t sleep.”

“Annoying, do you mean?” Tatpho guessed.

“Yes, annoying.”

“Well, rest as much as you need. Day or night. I’m here to take care of everything now. So just relax…” Tatpho began to purr, and Pieter snuggled back into him as he closed his eyes.

———

Tatpho woke up first, which he was used to from before he left. He smiled at Pieter’s peacefully sleeping face for a minute. Carefully he eased himself out of the bed, which was something of an operation now that Pieter’s nesting instincts had made the bed so crowded, but he got lucky and Pieter barely stirred.

He’d intended to simply leave the room and get his own room sorted—he preferred to have Pieter sleep with him, not the reverse—but as he pulled open the bed’s curtain, he was abruptly confronted with Pieter’s shrine.

Tatpho just stared at it for a moment, then finished clambering out of the bed and went to look at it more closely.

Foreign art, foreign objects… Dutch things, clearly…

He looked at a exotic cityscape in snow, then at another scene of a man painting a red-headed woman and her child, then at a bunch of strange fruits on a table, then at an etching print of a European ship in full sail.

Then his nose twitched.

He picked up a little box and opened it. There were two pieces of some kind of little candy inside, but that was not the smell that was making his blood boil.

Tatpho put the box right up to his nose and smelled deeply. Yes, there was no mistake. It was faint, but it was deeply imbued in the box: his brother’s scent.

_ Tatsin gave this to Pieter… why would he take it? Why would he keep it in his bedroom… did Tatsin give him all of these?! _

Tatpho tried to smell the other objects, but he couldn’t smell Tatsin on any of them. But that didn’t prove anything. Pheromones didn’t cling to some objects at all and would fade from most objects within days—only porous objects like wood or cloth could hold a scent for longer than that.

He grabbed an object in each hand and left to find a servant. “Where did these come from?!”

“Well… the books from my lord, and the rest from…” The servant, who liked Pieter very much and didn’t want to get him in trouble, hemmed and hawed, “Well, not that I can say who they came from for sure, because a servant is a servant, isn’t it, so anyone in the family could—”

“Whose servants brought the gifts in my consort’s room?” Tatpho interrupted with a growl. 

Though she was a beta she was not immune to the effect. “The young master’s brother, not that your consort ever encouraged it, no matter what anyone says! It’s not as if he could refuse the gifts!”

“Couldn’t he? Well, then I’ll take care of them and make sure my brother knows what’s become of them. Build up a fire.”

“Your brother—but young master, your brother—”

“I said build up a fire!” He barked, in no mood to hear any defence of Tatsin’s innocent, familial intentions.

She bowed and fled to the kitchen to obey him, and Tatpho started his work, walking back and forth between Pieter’s bedroom and the kitchen. The box of course he burned first, and the sugary anise candy within made a sweet smell in the air. The pictures did not smell nearly so nice as they warped and disintegrated in the flames.

Pieter remained asleep and quiet at first, but when Tatpho began opening drawers looking for anything else that could be from Tatsin, he stirred, and as he breathed, he could smell Tatpho’s aggression pheromones.

“What’s going on?” he asked fearfully, rubbing his eyes as he poked his head out of the bed and looked around. “Where are my things?”

“Your things?!” Tatpho whirled around from the dresser. “You mean Tatsin’s gifts?”

Pieter’s stricken face looked like a confession to Tatpho, and his faltering words didn’t dampen his alpha’s anger. “I want to tell you… I didn’t want, but I couldn’t…”

“You couldn’t refuse? Then I refuse for you. I’m getting rid of it all.”

“What?! No!” Pieter, who had been huddling in the blankets, scrambled out in a panic, nearly tripping from being entangled in them. “Tatpho!”

He chased after Tatpho, pleading. “I know they’re from Tatsin, but that’s not why I love them! I need them!”

“Why do you need gifts from another alpha?!” Tatpho could only barely keep the growl out of his voice.

It was hard for Pieter to stand up to anyone’s anger, let alone his alpha’s, where every nerve in his body wanted to placate him, but this was an emergency. “It’s my home,” Pieter insisted despite the tears leaking from his eyes.

“It’s not your home anymore!” shouted Tatpho. “This is your home! Here!”

“I need them,” Pieter begged, dropping to his knees and pressing his forehead to the ground in the Chinese way. “Please give them to me, please, please, please.”

“You don’t need anything but me,” Tatpho said, still angry, but he couldn’t help but be affected by Pieter’s pleas. “You don’t need anyone but me, either. How dare Tatsin give you gifts?! If he dares to do it now that I’m back, I’ll beat him bloody. Our father’s not here to take his side this time.”

“But Tatsin is…” Pieter trailed off, confused. Did Tatpho not know anything?

“Don’t defend him!” snarled Tatpho, angrier than ever. “I won’t let him have you! I won’t let him near you! You’re mine!”

“I never wanted him!” Pieter cried out, lifting his head. “I didn’t ask him for anything!”

“You took his gifts!”

Pieter had no response, the tears falling down his face faster, but after a moment he said, “Please let me keep my things. Please! Tatsin isn’t a problem anymore, because… your father…”

“Is that why my father sent me back? Because he knew you were behaving in this shameless way and he wanted me to teach you how to behave? Fine, I’ll teach you. This is the first lesson.” Tatpho had found a little stack of delftware tiles in a drawer, and he picked one up and smashed it on the ground.

“No!” screamed Pieter as Tatpho hurled them all down to the ground, one after another. “Don’t break them!”

“Stay back,” Tatpho alpha commanded when Pieter was getting up. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Pieter stayed in his half crouch, quivering. “Please don’t destroy anymore! Please give it back, please!”

Dropje, who had been let outside to do his business by a servant during all of this, had come back in now and smelled his master’s distress. He came loping in and went straight for Pieter’s arms.

“Did Tatsin give you that dog?” demanded Tatpho.

“No he didn’t!” Pieter clutched at Dropje. “I told you, your father did! Don’t hurt Dropje!”

“Well then keep him out of my way,” Tatpho said coldly.

Pieter couldn’t stand to watch it as Tatpho continued his merciless destruction of every shred of Holland Pieter had. He took Dropje with him into his bed, drawing the bed-curtain closed and huddling with his dog in a sobbing mess inside his nest.

_ Thank God I smashed that dildo myself after Tatsin listened to me using it… if Tatpho found that… _

_ He’s taking away everything. He’ll probably destroy all the books too… I’ll have nothing of home… my home! I’ll never see it again, never even a picture of it… oh God, oh Jesus, I can’t take this… I’m being punished for my sins before I even die… I’m afraid of hell but I can’t take this… God have mercy! _

Pieter sobbed himself to sleep.

Meanwhile, satisfied that he had rid his home of Tatsin’s physical interference, Tatpho went off to find the young alpha in person and have things out with him.

Tatpho stopped short when he got to his brother’s home and found it empty—really empty, not just unlived in.

He detoured to find Ah Gim, who could hopefully tell him exactly what had gone down in his absence.

And tell him he did.

“I’m surprised that even if your father didn’t tell you himself, you didn’t hear it when you stopped along the way,” Ah Gim said when he’d finished. “The common people are speaking of little else.”

Tatpho hasn’t stopped along the way. He’d been in such a rush to get home to his omega… “Do they blame Pieter?” Tatpho said, remembering the servant’s words now in a different light.

“Some do, of course. He’s a foreigner, after all, and Tatsin was popular enough. But your father was very confident and strident in defending young master’s consort, and your father’s more popular than any of you. If Lord Koxinga says the omega was innocent, then there’s not many who’ll dare to speak against that…”

Tatpho stood there numbly for a moment, then said quietly, “You said he ran from Tatsin’s house with no skirt?”

“In Tatsin’s lies, at least, he hadn’t yet touched him, and Tatsin himself was fully dressed, so it doesn’t seem... Oh, wait, that isn’t why you’re asking, is it. He’ll have told you himself…” Ah Gim scratched his neck for a moment, concentrating, then brightened. “Oh! Is it that you’re wondering how many people saw him like that? Not as many as you might fear, considering it was New Year! I think someone gave him a coat pretty quickly.”

“You taught him Chinese very well,” Tatpho said to get the topic onto something innocuous before taking his leave. 

“Oh, not at all,” laughed Ah Gim, looking pleased. “He’s clever, you know, very clever. He’s a good boy.”

By the standards of the time, the humble behaviour expected was to disavow a compliment to one’s consort just as much as to deny praise to oneself. But Tatpho couldn’t make his mouth form dismissal of Pieter right now. “I’ve got to go. I’ll let you know when it’s time for Pieter to have another lesson.”

Ah Gim laughed and made a suggestive expression. “Right, you’ll be _ busy…” _

Tatpho hurried back to his house, his heart in his mouth.

Had Tatsin raped Pieter? Or just tried to?

Damn his brother to an eternity as a hungry ghost for killing himself before Tatpho got the chance to do it.

_ “Everything was bad… I was so scared… I want you to fuck me, Tatpho, only you.” _

Damn it… all these months Tatsin must have been trying to wear Pieter down… and Pieter had just done his best, all alone…

The house smelled bad when he got back, because of the paint that had burned, and it was colder than usual, because windows had been opened to air out that smell.

Tatpho went into Pieter’s room. It was silent. “Pieter?”

There was no answer except the dog snuffling and coming out to investigate. It sniffed at Tatpho’s legs, apparently identified him as someone allowed, and made his awkward jump attempts to get back into the bed.

Tatpho parted the bed-curtain, expecting to see Pieter asleep, but Pieter was awake, his face red and tear-stained. The omega still didn’t say anything, and he didn’t look over at Tatpho. He was just staring at the ceiling.

“I found out about Tatsin.”

No reaction.

“Pieter… I know you wanted to tell me before. I didn’t realize…” Tatpho took a breath. Pieter still hadn’t responded in any fashion, not even a change of expression. “Pieter, I need to know…”

“I tried to stay away from him,” Pieter said to the ceiling. “He came up to me at the New Year, I was watching dancers and didn’t realize he was there until he was right next to me. I tried to reject him in a little way, by offering him a red envelope… I thought, here is something everyone else will just see as proper behaviour from me, but he will know I’m telling him I don’t want him. And he did know. It made him furious… and he commanded me to follow him…” Pieter’s eyes were tearing up, but he kept speaking. “I couldn’t stop. I followed him to his house… to his room… I tried to leave. He started taking off my clothes, he was stronger and I couldn’t stop him... He said that nobody was around, he said that if I told anyone they’d believe him, not me, that I tried to seduce him. But I managed to run, I kept going even when he commanded me to stop… I didn’t want him, I didn’t want him…”

“I know, I believe you,” Tatpho said.

Pieter startled, as if he had forgotten he was telling this story to Tatpho, and glanced over at his husband for the first time. “Your father… I didn’t think he’d believe me, so I didn’t say anything, I was so scared… but he somehow knew Tatsin was lying anyway, he said it was ridiculous and… Tatsin…” Pieter looked back at the ceiling. “He’s gone, so… so I let myself keep my things, and now…” The tears began to fall. “Now they’re all gone…”

“You don’t need those things now that I’m back,” Tatpho said, climbing into bed to cuddle Pieter. Pieter stayed stiff and distant, even with Tatpho nuzzling his bondmark. “I’m all you need now… and we’ll have our child soon. You’ll forget all this.”

“I can’t,” Pieter said miserably. “I can’t take it. I want to go home so much that I want to die.”

“This is your home,” Tatpho purred.

“It’s not home! I don’t belong here! Everything is so awful that I’d rather die!” Pieter cried, pulling himself out of Tatpho’s arms, but he didn’t struggle when Tatpho followed him across the bed and took him into his arms again, still purring. “I can’t get away, I know. I can’t even kill myself. But I want to die. Leave me alone. I have nothing.”

“You have me—”

“I have nothing!” Pieter hissed. “I hate you! I hate this place and I hate you! You’ve killed my heart already, so let my body die too!”

Despite the angry meaning of his words, Pieter didn’t look angry. He looked in despair. The hissing of his voice was more like air escaping a punctured lung than anything that carried a threat.

While Tatpho was still stunned, Pieter put his hands up between them and covered his own face.

“Please go, please, please, I can’t take it, I can’t take it, I can’t take it, go, go, go…”

He was becoming hysterical, like he had when he was marked, but Tatpho didn’t seem to be able to purr him out of it this time. The little black dog was licking at his master’s arms with concern.

Tatpho left, thinking he would let Pieter calm down and then try again later.


	8. Chapter 8

Pieter became something akin to catatonic in those awful days.

He wouldn’t refuse to do anything, but he wouldn’t initiate anything. He showed no emotions performing whatever actions he was directed to take. Whenever permitted, he laid in bed doing nothing more than holding Dropje.

He cried a great deal, but he would stifle his tears if Tatpho came in and tried to comfort him. Not as if Tatpho were actually helping him, but to make Tatpho go away sooner.

Tatpho brought a doctor to see him on the third day and Pieter submitted to that as meekly as to everything else. The doctor described Pieter’s chief problem as a disturbance in his  _ sin,  _ his spirit, which was leading to yang and qi deficiency and kidney dysfunction. Medicine and acupuncture was prescribed.

Pieter took those as docilely as everything else, but though his physical appearance improved somewhat, his fundamental apathy did not change.

Tatpho summoned him to his alpha’s bed once, to see whether he would come and how he would act. Pieter did come, and with a frighteningly blank face, immediately got on the bed, silently removed his underwear, and got on his hands and knees facing away from Tatpho.

Tatpho hadn’t even said anything yet.

“Pieter,” Tatpho said. “I…”

Pieter didn’t reply or move.

Tatpho was in tumult. Pieter was being perfectly submissive in his actions and posture, which triggered Tatpho’s instincts hard, and he was still Tatpho’s bonded omega… he couldn’t help wanting to fuck him… but…

Tatpho got into position as if to take him, but with his clothes still on. He leaned over Pieter’s back, nuzzled the nape of his neck, and kissed his collar.

“Pieter,” he whispered, “I want you to feel happy again.”

Pieter still made no noise or movement, other than a slight reflexive twitch as Tatpho’s lips brushed across the back of his neck again.

“Can I fuck you?” Tatpho purred, letting pheromones out.

“Yes.” Emotionless.

Tatpho wanted to, he wanted to, but… “Do you want it?”

There was a short silence, and then Pieter said, “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me. I told you, I want to make you happy… how can I make you happy?”

“It’s impossible… ah…” Pieter’s hips jerked a little, because Tatpho had put a hand on Pieter’s half-hard cock and was rubbing it gently.

“Why impossible?” Tatpho pleaded, rubbing the bulge of his own erection against Pieter’s butt as he spoke. “I can make you feel good. Don’t you want this cock?”

“I don’t want anything anymore,” Pieter said, but his voice at least no longer sounded completely indifferent, though Tatpho couldn’t identify the emotion.

Still, Tatpho took it as a good sign, freeing his own cock and sliding it into Pieter, who moaned. It did sound like a good moan.

“See, it feels good, right?” Tatpho said, trying his best not to sound too excited at the first pleasant sound he’d heard from Pieter in a week. “This is what you need, this is what will make you happy… Does it feel good?”

“Yes,” Pieter said, but the emotion in his voice was clear now.

Misery.

Tatpho stopped moving immediately. “Then… why not be happy?” When Pieter said nothing, he added, “Please tell me.”

“It makes me hate myself more,” Pieter answered, soft but all too audible.

Tatpho pulled out and tried to take Pieter into his arms, and though Pieter submitted to it like he did everything else, he didn’t look Tatpho in the eyes. The omega was clinging onto himself, he wouldn’t reach for his alpha. “Why can’t you be happy here? Why do you want those things so much? They were from Tatsin…”

“They were home,” Pieter said, but then shaking his head continued, “no, they weren’t home, but they were the only home I had.”

Tatpho felt guilty but also frustrated. “Well, they  _ are _ gone. I had to destroy them, as a man, as an alpha…” He wanted Pieter to acknowledge that Tatpho had done the only thing he could do, upon discovering a rival’s gifts in the bedroom of his omega. “Why can’t you understand…”

“I understand. I just can’t go on… I’m too weak and afraid to kill myself, or to run away, or to do anything… I’m the most miserable thing in this world, I hate… I hate myself…” He began to cry. “I want impossible things, I’ll never be happy again, but I won’t even die…”

Tatpho pulled him tighter. “You’ll be happy again.”

Pieter cried harder. “I never will.”

“You will, I promise,” he purred.

“I have no hope… someone like me… I can’t believe it will ever get better, things only ever get worse…”

“I’ll take care of you, remember? I’ll be all you need, both of you. I promise, I promise. I’ll take care of you. I’ll make you happy.”

“I can’t…” Pieter whimpered, still crying. “I can’t be happy… I’m the worst… I want to die, I want my mother… I want my mother so much and I’ll never see her again… she would hate what I am now… I hate myself…”

Tatpho kept purring. As Pieter was lulled by it, he stopped holding onto himself and actually let himself curl into Tatpho. Eventually he fell asleep. Tatpho tucked them in together and tried to sleep himself, but he couldn’t stop thinking.

How could he break Pieter’s despair? Just time? No, he couldn’t leave it to time… he couldn’t stand seeing Pieter so wretched.

At least Pieter had spoken to him. He’d really let himself cry, instead of immediately trying to shut down and withdraw… that was a good sign, right?

They were face to face in the moonlight… Pieter’s red hair… fox-coloured… even his eyelashes were like that… you wouldn’t think a person like that could be so soft and sweet, so dutiful and obedient…

Tatpho sighed. The only way that Pieter was actually like a fox was how quick he was. He had learned everything expected of him so fast. 

_ And how enchanting he is… I’m besotted with him, I was enchanted by him almost instantly, as if he bewitched me… and that feeling has only grown… _

_ He’s a foreigner, but other than that, he’s simply perfect in every way, everything an alpha would want from an omega… the emperor himself can’t have a better omega than mine! _

_ So why does he hate himself?! _

Those words from Pieter had been an angle Tatpho hadn’t expected at all, it made no sense to him. He had already accepted that Pieter was sad to lose things that reminded him of his country, and angry with Tatpho for destroying them. But those were the kinds of feelings he expected to diminish with time; Tatpho would be able to cajole him out of these sulks with physical affection and new gifts.

But this was something so much more serious than that. Self-loathing to the point of wanting to die… saying things only ever got worse and worse for someone like him… Why?

What did he mean by ‘someone like him’ anyway?

Against what standard was Pieter judging himself so harshly?

Tatpho realized he had no idea.

_ I don’t… really know him, do I? _

_ What  _ do _ I know about him? _

_ His father forced him to pretend to be a beta, and dragged him across the world when he clearly never wanted to leave his country. _

_ He adored his mother, yet he believes that she would hate him now… _

_ Why would she hate him? He is wonderful! Everyone who speaks with him comes to like him… my father, Ah Gim, my mother, even the servants… and she is his mother! He obeys so well, so readily, he is just darling… any woman should be proud to have an omega son like that. _

_ What else do I know about his past… _

_ He has… sisters? Yes, sisters… _

_ Nothing else? _

_ Nothing else. _

He really didn’t know much about Pieter. If he knew more, maybe he would understand why he felt like this.

But would Pieter talk to him now? It seemed unlikely. He’d let his guard down enough to lament just now, but Tatpho couldn’t count on Pieter’s guard staying down. It was quite likely he’d go back to being morose and silent.

Pieter had seemed to adapt quickly to his new life, and he had been everything Tatpho ever wanted in a consort—no, more than he dared to dream of…

But maybe to foreigners he was doing something bad? Those  _ angmolang,  _ those Dutch, were strange, after all…

He tried to think of what he knew about the Dutch. Their leaders were humourless, strict about their gods and insistent on schooling the Formosan natives to accept them—something that had made the natives turn against them… but the focus on schooling and education was not in itself far distant from what Chinese valued. They cut their hair and dressed oddly; their food was barbaric and coarse. But they had fine ships and excellent weapons and generally excelled in matters of mechanics.

What else? He couldn’t think of anything. He’d never thought it worth trying to understand the Dutch; why bother to understand a people you intend to wipe out?

Tatpho frowned and flexed his feet restlessly, not wanting to stay still yet not willing to do anything that would risk waking Pieter up and causing his omega to shrink away from him.

_ “My mother would hate what I am now.” _

Pieter adored his mother, that was obvious, and he was filled with anguish that she would hate him. Why would he think she would?

What would make a good mother feel disgust with her son?

Tatpho thought of what had made his father order his favourite son emasculated: sexual depravity, assaulting his own brother’s consort.

Pieter hadn’t done anything vile!

But…

Could it be that Pieter thought his mother would be disgusted at her son being married to a Chinese?

It was an odd thing to think about, but just as Tatpho himself had initially recoiled at marrying a Dutchman, it wasn’t absurd to think that a Dutchwoman might disdain her son marrying a Chinese. Or… perhaps even more than just being Chinese… her son was given to the son of the man who killed Pieter’s father.

Now Tatpho felt deeply uneasy. This was an uncomfortably valid reason for Pieter’s mother to hate her son; Chinese moral theory could certainly suggest that Pieter ought to have killed himself.

And… strange that it hadn’t occurred to him before this… his own grandmother had killed herself when the Manchu forces were advancing on where she was, so that she wouldn’t be violated by them. And Tatpho had been taught that her suicide was the only moral choice, and he agreed with what he had been taught.

But that was different, his mother was a married woman, and she had good reason to fear being serially raped to humiliate her husband and son, who were fighting the Manchus. Koxinga had defeated Pieter’s father in battle, and for the women of defeated enemies to become honourable wives and concubines was nothing terrible, it had a long, long history, didn’t it? Many ancient heroes had wives that were such… Cao Pi… Zhang Fei...

Still… it was the most likely answer of anything he had thought of so far… but also the most unhelpful. It wasn’t as if Tatpho could stop being part of the clan that killed Pieter’s father, after all, even if he had wanted to, which he didn’t.

But maybe he could convince Pieter that this idea was wrong, that  _ Pieter  _ had done nothing wrong, that their marriage was good and right, it was fate, destiny…

That had some hope to it, at least.

How to break through to the point that Pieter would talk to him, though?

Pieter had kept all those things, begged Tatpho with his forehead on the ground not to destroy them. He said he  _ needed  _ them.

“I’ll take care of you.” That’s what he kept telling Pieter. It was time to take care of Pieter’s needs—even the ones Tatpho wished he didn’t have.

———

Pieter was drowsing listlessly in bed when Dropje, who had been stoically resting under his hand, got up and barked, ran down to the end of the bed and poked its head out to bark more.

Pieter thought about telling Dropje to be quiet, but didn’t. 

Someone—no, maybe two people?—was coming into the room. Dropje popped out to investigate and a human voice tutted at it. There were noises of people and objects moving, then the people left, Dropje clicking after them to continue its investigation.

Pieter thought about looking at what they had changed, but didn’t.

After some time had passed, his meal tray was brought to him, and Tatpho was there, to command him to eat. It really wasn’t necessary for Tatpho to do that himself, certainly not for him to use alpha command to do so—Pieter would have accepted being told to eat by anyone—but Tatpho worried.

The curtain pulled back and Pieter sat up as the servant put the tray on the bed table and departed. There was a big, steaming bowl of soup; it smelled like mutton, ginger, and onions.

“Eat it all,” Tatpho commanded, and Pieter picked up his spoon.

He was facing the direction his shrine had been, but he didn’t look, instead staring only at the bowl of soup. It was too painful…

“What do you think of the pictures?” Tatpho asked after he had eaten a few bites.

The pictures?

Pieter did look up then, and his eyes widened as he saw there were four pictures hanging in the same spaces on the wall where Tatsin’s gifts had been. They weren’t exactly the same, of course, but they had vaguely the same subjects: a snow scene, though it was a rural landscape with a tree as the focal point instead of a city scene of people; a vaguely familiar picture of a ship; a woman with children and a spaniel, though it was a family portrait rather than a religious one; and another vaguely familiar picture, this one a still life of apples, bread, and cheese.

“Pieter?” prompted Tatpho, because Pieter was just staring.

Pieter glanced up. Tatpho was standing there stiffly, as if trying not to seem too concerned. When Pieter looked at him, he averted his eyes but then looked back at him steadily.

“I thought you didn’t want…” Pieter trailed off, because he wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence.

“I want… to be the one who makes you happy. To be the one who takes care of you.” A pause. “Will these help you be happy again?”

Pieter bit his lip, then got up, pulling his clothes around himself, and slipped on his house shoes to take a closer look at the pictures, especially the two that somehow seemed like he had seen them before.

“If they aren’t right, I’ll change them,” Tatpho said behind him.

Now that he was closer, he saw there were a lot of little objects on top of the dresser, as well; a mouth harp, playing cards, bits of scrimshaw, a little pile of miniatures and other such. He only glanced at them before turning his attention back to the still life and the ship.

“Were these from Sakam?” he asked, gesturing. “I feel like I’ve seen them before…”

“I think all these things were taken from Sakam…” Tatpho was frowning. “It bothers you…?”

“I suppose it shouldn’t… I was a thing taken from Sakam too, wasn’t I...” Pieter got a half-smile, somehow grimly amused at the parallel.

Pieter turned his attention to the family portrait. It was not very well done, it hadn’t been done by a master, or if it had, the master had dashed it off. This had been done as a memento for a man leaving his family to seek fortune across the world… tears pricked at Pieter’s eyes. That woman was a widow, those children had lost their father, almost certainly. The originals of the portrait might still be hoping their loved one was alive. “I don’t want this one,” he said with a tremor in his voice, tapping on the frame of the portrait, and turning his attention back to the little objects. Better to get all the unpleasantness over at once. The miniatures were going to be the same, he was sure—more bereaved lovers, children, parents…

“I’ll get a different one then. The others are good?” Tatpho asked. “You can tell me what kind—”

Pieter suddenly gasped, and plucked one miniature out from among the pile with trembling fingers. He backed away from the table clutching it, and would have backed right into the the bed table except that Tatpho hurried over to intercept him.

“What is it?”

“My mother… this is my mother…” Pieter was crying, but they were happy tears. The picture had been damaged on the edges by being forced out of its gold frame, but it was painted enamel on copper and thus still relatively good condition otherwise. His mother’s face was very serious in the picture, but the artist had captured her calm blue eyes. He could hardly believe he was seeing them again, even in painted form.  _ “M’n moeder, m’n moeder…”  _ He barely noticed he had switched to Dutch.

Tatpho helped Pieter to sit back down on the bed, and Pieter leaned against him, still mesmerized by the picture, not wanting to stop looking at it, as if it might disappear if he closed his eyes for too long.

Dropje, having in mysterious canine fashion sensed unusual behaviour from his master, came back, found the bedroom door shut against him, and began whining and scratching at it.

“Oh, Dropje,” said Pieter, knocked out of his spell. He wiped at his face with his inner sleeve hurriedly and started to get up.

“I’ll let it in, if you want it,” Tatpho said, pressing lightly on Pieter’s shoulder so that he would stay seated. 

The dog scampered past Tatpho and leapt up to put its paws on Pieter’s knees, and Pieter indulged this naughty behaviour, rubbing Dropje behind the ears.

“Everything is fine, Dropje,” Pieter assured the pup in Dutch, helping it into his lap. “Were you worried? No, don’t kiss my face. There, good boy. Good Dropje.”

Dropje sniffed at the miniature portrait, decided it was uninteresting, and settled into Pieter’s lap.

Pieter looked up at Tatpho, and Tatpho looked back at Pieter. It was an awkward silence, and Pieter blushed, and hated that he always blushed whenever he felt any kind of unease.

“I’m glad I could get your mother’s picture for you,” Tatpho broke the silence. “Will it… help you feel better…?”

Pieter bit his lip and looked down. The problem was that it wasn’t just the destruction of his things, the not having them anymore, that made him sink into utter despair; it was what helplessly watching his alpha destroy his things after months of unending fear made him finally confront in a way he hadn’t let himself acknowledge before: that his life was utterly out of his control. He had no right to his own things or his own body. He had been too cowardly and weak to resist his captors, and he was terrified in every way of suicide and of the hell that surely awaited him after killing himself. So he was going to live on, and things would only ever get worse.

He looked again at his mother’s picture. How he missed her! And yet even the thought of reunion with her could not be happy, not even as fantasy—he was so despicable…

And Tatpho… he wanted Tatpho, yearned for him, and he believed, even now, that Tatpho really did want to treat him well; the problem was that Tatpho’s idea of what good treatment of an omega involved was so alien to Pieter. He’d been raised to be a European beta man; to be a Chinese omega man instead was...

“I don’t know,” he said softly, because he had left the silence so long. Pieter looked up; he could see that Tatpho was sad and hurting too. “Tatpho… it’s not that I don’t want to be happy with you, but…”

Tatpho walked over, sat next to Pieter, and leaned his forehead against his. “Pieter… I know, I know it must be hard. But I do want to make you happy. I believe you and I have  _ ianhun.” _

“What is  _ ianhun?”  _

“Ah…” Tatpho chuckled sheepishly as he tried to think, sitting back a little. “It is… when heaven chooses a marriage.”

“You and I?”

“Yes,” Tatpho said. “Because… it wasn’t you who chose me, it wasn’t me who chose you, yet… you are perfect for me. In the whole world, I only want you now. Isn’t that  _ ianhun?” _

Pieter stared at Tatpho’s yearning, admiring face. Tatpho… Tatpho was just doing the best he could, just like Pieter. And…

Pieter decided to test something, to push against it and see how much weight it would hold. “Who am I to you?”

Tatpho’s forehead creased. He answered quickly, automatically: “You’re my omega.”

“But what does that mean?” Tatpho still looked confused, and Pieter tried again. “Now that I am your omega… I have nothing that isn’t yours first… even my body…” He looked down at his abdomen. “I am only your omega. If I am only a thing that is yours… what is that thing to you? Do you understand?”

Tatpho frowned and nodded slowly. “Yes… I see now. But…” He half-smiled, looking at Pieter. “Didn’t you already know, how important you are to me? The most important person…”

“Person or thing?”

“Person,” Tatpho said firmly. “You’re a person… I want you all for myself, I know, but… I don’t know how to say it. I never thought I would feel like this about my consort… it’s completely different from how I think of my concubine…”

Tatpho probably meant this as an evidence of the intensity of his feelings, but the fact that he was so coolly bringing up having a concubine was a stark reminder in itself that Pieter was in a totally alien world.

But this was his world now, too. For the rest of his life…

“You… if you had stayed in Holland… I suppose you would be happier but… you didn’t. This may be too direct, but… You came to Chinese territory, and your father lost, my father won. And my father gave you to me, and now…” Tatpho reached out and put the tip of his finger on Pieter’s collar mark, and the omega let out a shuddery breath. “I’ve marked you and put a child inside you… it can’t be changed. So won’t you let me make you happy? Your happiness is my only happiness.”

It was this last— _ your happiness is my only happiness— _ which was what Pieter somehow needed to hear put into words and spoken aloud.

_ I matter to Tatpho. If I smile, if I feel joy again… he will be happy too. He’s still trying… maybe I can give it another try too. _

“I’ll try,” Pieter said quietly, and instantly Tatpho’s face was aglow with relief.

“Pieter,” he purred, leaning forward eagerly and nuzzling against him,  _ “goed, _ Pieter… I’ll change the picture you don’t like. What do you want instead? I’ll get you anything.”

“The one that was there before… it wasn’t just an ordinary mother and child, it was... Maria, and her baby Jezus…”

“Oh, your god, right?” Tatpho purred thoughtfully. “I see… I’ll get you a picture of your god and her child.”

This was such an absurd and backwards way of describing a Madonna and Child that Pieter couldn’t help but laugh, and once he started laughing, he just kept laughing, long past the ordinary humour of it. So much pent up emotion bubbling out of him… and laughing while being purred for felt really good...

Without thinking, he reached out for Tatpho, his mother’s miniature still clutched in his hand. He wanted Tatpho to press him against that gently rumbling chest.

But while Tatpho eagerly accepted him, Dropje, who had been unceremoniously kicked out of the cuddle, made the most of an opportunity.

“Oh! Dropje! Bad dog!” scolded Pieter in Dutch, yanking the pup out of the soup bowl. “Don’t eat that!”

The dog seemed unrepentant, but he whined when Pieter crossly carried him to the door and put him out as a punishment.

Tatpho was standing when he turned around. “I’ll have them make you new dinner.”

“Have you eaten yours? We can eat together…”

Tatpho’s smile again, so handsome. “I’d like that.”

———

Tatpho left Pieter in his room to dress, called a servant to help Pieter with his hair, and went to tell the kitchen servants to make more food.

When Pieter joined him at the table, the casual greeting Tatpho intended to offer choked in his mouth.

_ Tsiohloh hok… oh, shit, but he’s gorgeous! _

He hadn’t expected to see Pieter wearing that style… the creamy yellow of the coat, tied over with a jade coloured skirt by a dark green sash. The skirt was decorated with a bamboo motif: modest and resilient, evergreen and erudite, simple and upright, every part of it good and useful. Perfectly suited to Pieter.

Tatpho’s eyes went back up to Pieter’s face, and he smiled, because Pieter was blushing adorably again, bashfully tucking his hands into his sleeves. “Come and eat.”

Pieter came and sat, waited in stillness for his husband to take the first bite, then picked up his own chopsticks with grace.

Tatpho put meat onto Pieter’s plate, encouraged him to have a second bowl of rice, and spoke to Pieter about his clothes—a relatively calm topic, he thought.

“Do you have enough to wear? Are you warm enough?”

“Yes, too much, really… Your father was very… You will have to look at the warddrobe and see how many of this  _ tsiohlok hok _ he had made for me, when I will only wear it a few months…”

_ I’ll make sure you get to wear it again and again.  _ “It suits you very well.”

“Not really… I feel embarrassed… I know everyone is always looking at me, but I feel even more strange…”

“It makes me very happy, for them to see you like this.”

Pieter was chewing a bite of venison and said nothing. Tatpho tucked into his own meal with a good appetite.

“I like the bamboo on you,” Tatpho said after swallowing some rice. “You make me think of bamboo.”

“Me?” Pieter looked down at himself, perplexed. “I don’t see it…”

“Not the looks, the feeling.”

“Feeling? I still don’t understand… in my country we don’t have this plant… of course I’ve seen it here…”

“Chinese admire this plant very much. It is beautiful, useful for many things, grows fast, lives long.”

“Oh… ah, then… no I’m not…? Or… how do I say…?”

He said this with a combination of confusion and dismay. Tatpho said, “What is it?”

“I’m supposed to deny compliments, right?”

_ So cute!  _ “You don’t have to be polite with me like that.”

“That’s being polite?”

“Yes, of course. Between you and I, let’s speak our real feelings from now on, alright?”

Pieter looked hesitant and didn’t answer.

“Give it a try?” suggested Tatpho, pushing his luck a little. “I really want to know your feelings.”

Pieter ducked his head. “...I’ll try.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may be the last update for a little while as I intend to try to do NaNoWriMo this coming month, for another work; another spin-off from _Queen's Choice(s)_ about that work's side pairing. Who knows; I have about 3k of the next chapter already written so I may come back to this work for a change of pace.


	9. Chapter 9

When dinner was over Pieter went back to his room and Tatpho didn’t follow. He dealt with some minor matters in his study until it was time to go to bed, although he did not feel sleepy.

What he felt was horny. He’d only gotten to have Pieter that first night since he’d been back, not counting that failed attempt a few days back, and the whole time they’d been sieging the Dutch he hadn’t had sex either. Sure, he could have gotten a beta woman prostitute if he’d bothered to try for it, but when he considered it, he had a sudden worry: what if she had a disease? Cantonese sores [syphilis] were rampant in trading areas. His own father had the sores from careless behaviour after the death of his omega.

And no beta could compare to what it was like to be inside Pieter.

But he shouldn’t push his luck any further by asking Pieter to come to him tonight. How much progress did he want in a single day?

_ All of it… I want Pieter to be happy now… and begging for my knot, looking at me with those blue eyes like— _

Tatpho sighed. Rushing things could easily backfire… like the old story of the man who tried to make plants grow faster by yanking them up out of the ground.

Yanking…

Well there was no harm about  _ fantasizing _ about Pieter, right?

Now, where was he...

That’s right.

_ Begging for my knot. Looking at me with those blue eyes like I’m his only god. Panting for me… his wonderful scent wafting off of him... _

Tatpho freed his burgeoning erection, but then had a second thought. If he fantasized about Pieter right now he was definitely going to knot his own hand… which meant an enormous mess. He couldn’t do it on the floor as it would soak into it, and if he did it on the bed he’d have to smell it… he needed a cloth to catch it.

With a sigh, he refastened his clothes and got up to scrounge around in his room for something suitable.

His mind was still wandering, though.

_ “Mmm, you want my knot so much? Are you wet enough to take it, little fox?” _

_ “Tatpho,” Pieter keened sweetly in his mind. “Can’t you feel it, can’t you smell it…” _

_ “Come here and let me see for myself.” _

_ Pieter getting up and—no, crawling, crawling, that was much sexier,  _ crawling  _ up the bed to Tatpho. Pieter straddling Tatpho's chest and rising to a kneel, averting his blushing face shyly, but his lower body being completely bold. That hard little cock jutting out, slick slowly trickling out of the hole beneath. _

Tatpho surprised himself then by imagining himself leaning forward and taking Pieter’s cock into his mouth. In his imagination Pieter too was surprised…

_ “N-no, Tatpho, it’s dirty, y-you can’t… anh!” _

_ Tatpho pulled away with a final lick, looking up at Pieter’s overwrought face. “But it felt good, right? Be honest.” _

_ “So good, but… but your knot is even better!” _

Shit. Where the fuck was a cloth or something… why was the drawer where he kept his loincloths empty?!

There was a knock at the door, but it was a rapid two-beat, nothing like the usual knock of his servants.

“Who is it?”

“Um… it’s me…” Pieter said.

Tatpho was at the door in a flash. When he opened it, Pieter was there in his night clothes.

“I know you didn’t ask for me…”

“Don’t worry about that at all,” Tatpho said, backing up to let Pieter in and quickly shutting the door behind him. “You can come to me whenever you want.”

“Oh? Ah Gim said I should wait to be summoned, or let you come to me, because… you might have your concubine…”

“That won’t happen,” Tatpho said. “I’m happy you came, really happy… come get in bed with me, it’s still cold…”  _ And I want to warm you up. _

“Alright,” Pieter agreed quietly.

They climbed into bed together, pulled the blankets around themselves. Even though Pieter had invited himself into his bedroom, he seemed reluctant to say anything, so Tatpho attempted to break the ice.

“Your Chinese really has gotten very good, and you can use chopsticks and eat properly too,” he praised.

“Not at—” Pieter stopped himself, flushed, and said, “You really think so? I’ve been trying hard.”

“I really think so,” Tatpho said honestly. “When I left a few months ago you could barely speak a few words and couldn’t use chopsticks. Now look at you.”

“Well… I did almost nothing but practice with Ah Gim, and I knew it was important. I don’t want you to lose face because of me.”

Tatpho laughed. “Lose face! You even sound like a Chinese now. Dutch don’t care about face, do they?”

“Well… not the same,” Pieter said.

“Don’t worry about my face. Having an omega consort like you gave me a huge amount of face, you know.”

“I know.”

Tatpho tapped his tongue against the back of his teeth, trying to focus on what to say to understand Pieter better when his still hard cock only wanted him to rip their clothes off and get inside him.

“I… I came here because I… um… I want…”

Tatpho, who had his hand resting loosely on Pieter’s hip, took these words and Pieter’s expression as an invitation to slide it down between Pieter’s legs. There was a definite erection there, and Pieter gasped and jerked a little as he touched it.

“T-tatpho!”

“Is this what you want?” Tatpho said huskily, pulling Pieter closer against his body so Pieter could feel his own lust. “You came here to be fucked? Ah, don’t be embarrassed, I’m really happy.” He kissed Pieter’s blushing cheeks and trailed the kisses down to his neck, breathing in Pieter’s wonderful smell. “Tell me you want it, little fox.”

“I want it…”

“It’s good that you want me,” Tatpho purred as he slowly undressed them both. “It’s really good, Pieter. I’m your alpha, I want to please you like this, I want to fuck you. You don’t have to be ashamed to ask for it.”

“Isn’t it shameful?” Pieter moaned, because Tatpho was sucking on the skin over his gland and lining his cock up to Pieter’s entrance.

“I’m your alpha,” Tatpho repeated, groaning it a little as he slid inside Pieter. “You’re an omega, it’s natural. Like wanting food.”

Pieter seemed to be losing his mind in the pleasure too much to consider continuing a conversation. With Pieter’s belly in the way, they couldn’t achieve very deep penetration on their sides facing each other, and after some whines of frustration, Pieter actually pushed Tatpho onto his back to roll over with him, mounted on him.

Pieter let out a loud cry of satisfaction as he sank fully onto Tatpho’s hips at last, and Tatpho had to bite his cheek to keep control at seeing Pieter like that, arching his back in ecstasy and cumming just from having his alpha’s cock fully inside him. He felt the semen hitting his stomach, hot in spatters, and he yearned to fill Pieter up with his own.

Pieter came down from the peak of his orgasm and suddenly realized he had manhandled his alpha. Tatpho saw his face seize up with fear and was just in time to grip onto Pieter’s hips to keep him from pulling off.

“I’m sorry—I pushed you, I don’t know why, it won’t happen again, I’m really sorry,” Pieter whimpered, and though Pieter’s submissiveness was arousing to Tatpho, he didn’t want it this time.

“You did nothing wrong,” he said firmly, caressing Pieter’s thighs. “If it happens again, I’ll be happy again. You looked gorgeous, cumming around me like that. I nearly knotted you.”

“Knot…” said Pieter, and he licked his lips, but then flushed. Oh, the combination of his lewdness and his shyness was going to drive Tatpho insane.

“You want my knot,” Tatpho said, running the caress up Pieter’s back between the fabric and the flesh, admiring the swell of his abdomen, “my little fox wants my knot inside him. That’s good Pieter, you should want it, because I want to give it to you.”

Pieter smiled; it was uncertain, but it was a smile. “You really want me to like sex.”

Tatpho laughed. He took Pieter’s hands and kissed them, and Pieter’s little smile changed to a look of wide eyed surprise, and then the smile returned, but where before it had been a tentative smile of making a small joke, this time it was warmer and fuller. Tatpho’s smile got bigger in response. “Ride me,” he encouraged, “let me see you like sex.”

“Ride?”

It was always funny, these unexpected gaps in Pieter’s vocabulary. Fortunately there was a delightful way to teach this word. “Ride,” Tatpho said, grasping Pieter’s hips and easily lifting him up and down on his cock as his omega keened in surprise and pleasure. “Ride your alpha. Ride. You say it. ‘Ride.’”

“Ride!” moaned Pieter, working his hips himself now.

“What a good student,” Tatpho praised him with a wicked smirk. “So clever and cute. My sweet Pieter.”

Pieter was panting, exactly how Tatpho had fantasized, his eyes were closed and his chin was tilting back. Tatpho lost his smirk totally.

“Oh Pieter,” he moaned, and as Pieter’s eyes fluttered back open, he continued, “touch yourself, make yourself come around me, you look amazing.”

“Will you—hah—give me your knot?” Pieter panted out, and if that wasn’t hot enough, he added desperately, “Please!”

_ “Fuck,”  _ Tatpho swore, “Yes, cum quickly, I’ll knot you, as soon as you’re cumming I’ll fill you up, I’ll get you stuck on my knot, so good, so so good—”

Tatpho kept his word. The moment the pitch of Pieter’s moans went up and his breaths shortened, he felt his knot threatening to pop and he let out a long groan himself as he focused on Pieter’s cock to see if he really was cumming.

The moment the first drop of white appeared Tatpho grabbed hard onto Pieter’s hips and yanked him down to let his knot swell.

“Ah, husband,” Pieter cried out.

Oh, fuck... Being called that in that moment…

“I love you,” Tatpho moaned, hardly noticing he was saying it, the feelings were so intense. “Nngh, take my knot, take it, ah…”

When he came down from the peak, he did realize he had said something significant.

_ Did I really say I loved him? Now that I think about it, of course I do… but to say it… he doesn’t even seem to have noticed... _

Pieter seemed preoccupied with looking down at the mess he had created on Tatpho’s torso.

“Sorry,” Pieter said, “do you have a, um, a… I forget the word…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tatpho said. He had set his loincloth to the side and fortunately it was still within reach. He grabbed it and wiped up the mess. “There. Good enough.”

Pieter’s nightclothes had loosened some, and he pulled them tighter around himself now that the mess was gone, hiding the place where they were still joined.

“Are you very cold?” said Tatpho, rubbing at Pieter’s hips and elbows. “As soon as my knot goes down, I’ll wrap you in blankets. Maybe I don’t have enough here for you… do you want me to take you back to your nest?”

“Would you stay with me? I… I’m also lonely.” He was staring at the still lit lanterns of the room. The warm lighting played up the red of his hair and the pink of his skin even more. His hair was getting long now, cascading down in loose waves.

Tatpho reached up to lightly play with a tendril. “I’d like to.”

“Does my hair really not bother you anymore?”

“Bother me?”

“You don’t think it’s ugly?”

“You’re beautiful,” Tatpho said emphatically, as a statement of fact. “How could it bother me? It’s what makes you my lovely fox.”

———

The weather was getting warmer day by day. A few days after the breakthrough in Pieter’s melancholy, Tatpho brought his omega with him to visit his older brother, where his mother also lived.

The relationship between the brothers was complicated. Tatke was Tatpho’s superior in age, and therefore Tatpho was required by hierarchical custom to respect and honour him; but Tatpho was an alpha and Tatke was only a beta, which made Tatpho a superior heir under the law.

They were not much more than a year apart in age, too, but even in their earliest childhood they were constantly reminded of the difference in their value. Their father took an omega wife when Tatpho was still a toddler, reducing their mother to a second wife. Their mother knew very well that Tatpho was the source of all favour she had left, and guarded his life and health with frenzied zeal. Tatke became her lieutenant in this vital mission: keep Tatpho well.

So Tatke, in many ways, mothered and bossed him around as they grew up; he took his responsibility seriously. Tatpho both appreciated it and chafed at it.

“You call my brother Ah-Peh,” Tatpho instructed Pieter in the sedan chair to visit, “and both of us call his wife Ah-So. If their daughter is around, they may call you Ah-Tsim… or even if she’s not, it’ll be easier for them to say than Pieter…”

Pieter nodded, his hands folded in his sleeves.

“My mother will probably want to tell you a lot about your pregnancy, and the baby too,” said Tatpho. “Just agree with whatever she says and don’t worry.”

His omega nodded again dutifully.

As it turned out, however, it was Tatpho who couldn’t take his own advice not to bother arguing when she didn’t have any power to impose her will.

“You look terribly pale,” his mother criticized Pieter, “you’re not eating enough meat, here.”

Pieter nodded meekly as his mother-in-law piled more meat onto his rice.

“Why did you bring him out in the winter at all?” she scolded her own son. “He should be keeping warm at home.”

“Tatpho only got home a few weeks ago, Mama,” Tatke said in a conciliatory way, surprising Tatpho. “He probably wants to spend more time with his consort.”

“Tatpho,” his mother began, got an eyeful of her alpha son’s mutinous expression, and modified her tone to be more kindly. “I understand he’s  _ special _ to you, but you do have your concubine. You shouldn’t be bothering him with unreasonable requests in pregnancy. Or get another concubine, if the one you have displeases you.”

Tatpho could see that Pieter was puzzled and concerned by this concubine talk. “I’m not going to get another concubine. And it’s already getting warmer. Pieter is very healthy and my father’s doctor is monitoring him.”

“Well, the  _ doctor _ ought to have told you that in  _ this condition _ you should get  _ those needs _ provided for by a concubine—”

“Stop talking about this around Pieter,” Tatpho said testily. The last thing he wanted was his mother planting the idea into Pieter’s head that having sex with Tatpho might hurt the baby, as was the widespread belief among betas.

“But the baby might—”

“Pieter, go wait outside the house,” Tatpho alpha commanded. The chopsticks clattered loudly onto the table as Pieter instantly dropped them, rose up, and walked out without a word or a backwards glance. Once he was gone, Tatpho continued icily, “I said to drop it. Are you going to drop it or do we need to leave?”

His mother slammed her hands down on the table and rose up. “How dare you speak to your mother like this? Do you know how I worked, worried, and agonized, keeping you well all through your childhood? The nights I nursed you, the illnesses and injuries I cared for? The sacrifices I made to make sure that you got the most and best food and education? The humiliations I endured to make sure your father didn’t forget you existed?”

Tatpho was silent.

“Stop being selfish! You are the heir now—you need to secure as many of your own potential heirs as you can. If you want the child inside your omega to be strong and healthy you need to control yourself! And you should be gain more sons for yourself from your concubine! Are you just going to feed and clothe her with no return? Get your money’s worth!”

Tatpho still said nothing.

“If your father hadn’t insisted on only taking his omega to bed except when she was recovering from childbirth, maybe she wouldn’t have died so young,” his mother continued. “As my son you have the duty to listen to me! Tatke, tell him!”

“No man wants his mother’s advice in his bed,” Tatke hedged. “I’m sure Tatpho will consider your words, Mama, but let’s leave it for now. He has so little time to visit, shouldn’t we make it pleasant?”

“We should make it count. If the child doesn’t live and then something happens to Tatpho we have to consider what will happen to us? Is that what you want, Tatpho? You want your mother’s humiliation to be complete?”

Tatpho got up. “Mama, I am sorry that you too upset to have us visit right now. I’ll bring Pieter back and visit with you another day when you are calmer.”

“Don’t walk away from me!” his mother called shrilly, while he heard his brother attempting to calm her.

Pieter was still in his house slippers, and he looked extremely embarrassed, because a bunch of people had come to gawk at him.

“Mind your own business,” Tatpho barked at the busibodies and brought Pieter back in to get his shoes.

“Is your mother worried that the baby will be too foreign, because I’m the bearer?” Pieter asked suddenly on the ride home. “Is that why she wants you to sire a child on the concubine instead?”

_ Oh. _ Pieter had grabbed entirely the wrong idea from the insinuations of his mother-in-law. Well, good. Anything rather than have Pieter worry about the child be hurt by accepting Tatpho’s embrace, when Pieter had only just become willing to enjoy sex with him again. Tatpho leaned across the sedan chair and put his hand on Pieter’s bump. “Don’t pay attention to what she says or to anyone but me. Our children will be perfect. I don’t need children from any other source.”

“In Holland, men have only one wife,” said Pieter, looking down at Tatpho’s hand. “The way Chinese think about it is strange to me.”

“Do you want me to get rid of my concubine?”

Pieter blinked. “But where would she go?”

Tatpho wasn’t sure how to answer. Why did Pieter care? “She’s still young, she could become another man’s concubine.”

“If she can’t have a child by you, then maybe she would happier that way…” Pieter said slowly.

Pieter was so soft-hearted, so kind… Tatpho could hardly wait to see Pieter with their child. He rubbed Pieter’s belly tenderly. Yes, he didn’t need the concubine’s jealous spirit around his house. Anyone and anything who made Pieter uncomfortable had to go.

“I’ll take care of everything,” Tatpho promised, smiling.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Childbirth scene.

It was less than two years since Tatpho had gotten his concubine, but his father had handled it all, and tracking down her family turned out to be more of a hassle than Tatpho expected. He couldn’t find her father at all. Eventually he was able to make contact with a half-brother of hers, who came in to see Tatpho reluctantly.

At first he was hostile, and it was difficult to get him to realize that Tatpho was  _ not _ demanding the bride price back, but once he realized that Tatpho wanted to give him back his half-sister without conditions—where she could be sold as a concubine to someone else for another bride price, albeit doubtless a smaller one for a non-virgin—he was still wary but open to the matter.

“Why did she displease you so much? Was she ill?” he said, and Tatpho did not mistake this for fraternal concern. The brother was sure there had to be a catch to Tatpho not wanting at least part of the bride price back. An expensive illness, or a sexual disease that would make her unmarriageable...

Tatpho said coldly, “I could just turn her out and let her make her own way. I assumed her family would wish to assure she was safe and help her in making a new match.”

The man sighed. “Well, if you don’t want her, I suppose the Kuan family has to take her back… make sure you give her the proof of dismissal.”

“Of course.”

After he had gone, Tatpho summoned his concubine.

She took longer than she should have to arrive, and when he saw her he knew why: she had made herself up, dressed with care, even put perfume on.

“I have seen your brother Ankiat,” Tatpho said bluntly, “and he’s willing to take you back. I don’t have a use for you here and I don’t want you. You can take your clothes with you; is there anything else you want to take?”

She was silent and still as she knelt before him.

After half a minute, Tatpho said, “I suppose it will take you some time to think about what you might want. I won’t deny any reasonable request. You can go back to your room now; I’ll call you tomorrow to find out what you want. Go now.”

She left, but not to go to her room.

———

“Lord Consort,” Tatpho’s concubine sobbed, dropping to clutch at the bottom of Pieter’s robe the moment he had opened his door to her knock, “please, help me, help me.”

Pieter stared. He had never been told anything about the concubine other than Ah Gim’s flippant advice to call her  _ oi,  _ so he didn’t know her name. “What’s wrong? Come in.”

She came in enough for Pieter to close the door, but returned to her knees.

“The young master wants to send me away. Please, tell him I will serve you, I will be obedient and serve you!” she sobbed.

Pieter was totally taken aback. He had agreed that Tatpho should get rid of the concubine on the assumption that she would want to go. “What are you called?”

“Your servant is called Kuan Tin’i,” she said into his knees. “Whatever you wish, I will do. I can clean…”

“Why do you want to stay?” asked Pieter. “Tat… if the young master will not touch you, then…”

“Lord Consort, I understand, I understand,” Tin’i said, “I won’t try to make him touch me, I promise!”

“No, I mean… don’t you want another house…” Pieter wasn’t sure how to say it, how to ask if she wanted a house where she wouldn't be an unwanted and frozen out extra. “Don’t you want a child?”

Tin’i shook her head vehemently. “If I leave, I will never find a place as good as this. My brother will sell me as quickly as he can to anyone. Please, Lord Consort, help me!”

“I understand,” Pieter said sadly, even though he didn’t entirely. The major point was clear: Tin’i desperately didn’t want to be dismissed, enough to humiliate herself before her master’s consort like this. “I will ask the young master to keep you.”

———

The further along Pieter got, the more elaborate and complicated his nest became. His omega still was reluctant to assert his needs or desires, so Tatpho had to pull it out of Pieter through a combination of leading questions and close observations that Pieter greatly preferred to sleep in his nest, but also wanted his alpha there.

Therefore Tatpho would go to Pieter’s room at night. Having sex within the fort of bolsters, pillows, cushions, blankets, and so on, was actually not too bad; certainly Pieter was worth any hassle of rearranging things, and they had begun keeping a little stack of cloths to use to keep things clean and wipe up. The problem was Dropje.

Pieter  _ adored _ the little dog; it was obviously a huge source of comfort for him, and Tatpho didn’t want to take it away, but.

But.

The dog was a constant mood wrecker. First there was the little song and dance of Pieter putting the dog out when Tatpho initiated sex; the dog was at least obedient enough to stay on its cushion out in the hall when directed to do so. Then there was how, as soon as Tatpho’s knot went down, Pieter would rush up to let the dog back in. And then Pieter would carry Dropje back inside, talking to it in Dutch all the time as he climbed back into bed and rearranged the covers and so on around himself, until finally Dropje slipped into its spot, on top of the covers next to Pieter’s chest, Pieter facing the dog… his back to Tatpho.

Once Tatpho had caught Pieter’s wrist and said, “Don’t get the dog,” and while Pieter had obediently gotten back into bed and seemed to sleep, Tatpho had soon been awakened by Pieter carefully sneaking out to get the dog, hushing it, creeping back inside (where Tatpho was feigning sleep), and letting out a quiet sigh of relief when he was lying down again with Dropje in place. Disappointing, yet adorable.

_ I love you.  _ Tatpho had not said these words again aloud since that time when he said them when Pieter called him  _ husband _ during sex, but he felt them more every day.

Yet there was still this gap between him and Pieter, or perhaps a wall. Despite Tatpho’s efforts to replace Pieter’s things, despite his constant encouragement of his omega to share thoughts, feelings, and concerns, and despite Pieter’s invariably obedient and docile efforts to do whatever he thought Tatpho wanted from him, the sense that Tatpho couldn’t really reach Pieter was always there. And in the dark night, after sex, when Tatpho most wanted to hold onto Pieter, seeing the bright and easy way that Pieter spoke to his dog forced Tatpho to acknowledge every day, that Pieter was not nearly at such ease with his alpha.

Pieter enjoyed sex with him, felt protected by him, maybe, by now, even liked him somewhat.

Not loved him. Not truly trusted him. Trusted him to defend Pieter from violence from others, yes. But not anything more than that.

The signs of it were subtle, but Pieter was still afraid of him. Often when Pieter thought he had made a mistake or done something to displease Tatpho, he would cringe, recoil, flinch—bracing against an expected blow. Or he would launch into a panicked, distressed babble of apologies. Moreover Pieter was just fearful generally. Though for a consort or wife to stay at home all day was a supposedly praiseworthy behaviour—proof of modesty and simplicity—it worried Tatpho, how Pieter spoke to no one but the servants and Ah Gim, how he stayed inside with his dog and his shrine to Holland all day.

If only Pieter’s eyes would light up with joy at seeing his husband, the way they did when he picked up his dog.

Yes, he was jealous of a dog.

When Tatpho came to his consort’s room that evening, he was surprised to see Dropje already banished upon the cushion. He let himself into the room and saw, with further surprise and pleasure, Pieter’s bare back. The red-haired head turned, and the mouth smiled nervously. “Good evening, Tatpho.”

“Aren’t you cold?” said Tatpho, coming over to the bed, and saw that Pieter was applying some kind of cream to his gravid belly.

“A little,” Pieter admitted, “but I don’t want to stain the clothes with this… the skin was itching, and so…”

Tatpho slipped off his house slippers and got into bed behind Pieter, pressing against his back and gently rubbing his shoulders. “Can I at least keep your back warm like this?”

“Alright,” Pieter said shyly. Goosebumps were prickling up on his arms as he worked, rubbing the cream into his skin.

“You really are cold,” said Tatpho. “Don’t worry about stains.” He grabbed Pieter’s nightclothes and began to wrap Pieter in them again.

“I’m not that cold,” Pieter protested, but Tatpho was purring for him, and he sighed and let himself be pulled down onto the bed, loosely wrapped in his nightgown, while Tatpho pulled up blankets and covers. “Really, I am not that cold… in Holland this is how it is in the high summer…”

“What, really?” purred Tatpho, and then, not wanting Pieter’s mind on Holland, changed the subject. “Is the itching better now?”

“I saw the doctor today. The doctor said the skin is growing and that if I do not use the cream I will get marks,” said Pieter in a rather depressed way. “It doesn’t seem to help the itching very much. He said it would. Maybe it will take time.”

“My poor fox,” purred Tatpho. “If you are not cold, then what is this?”

He pushed Pieter’s sleeves up and rubbed at the goosebumps.

“You’re so close,” said Pieter, blushing.

“After so much time I still make you nervous?” teased Tatpho, but inside he was not really jesting. He put his hand on Pieter’s belly. Pieter’s skin was warm and soft beneath his callused fingertips, and he could feel the child within moving. “My child will be born in another month.” Pieter shuddered in his arms, and he quickly purred, “You’ll be fine. Omegas almost never have problems.”  _ My father’s wife’s death was just bad luck. _

“I’m still scared,” Pieter said in a small voice, touching his own stomach gingerly. He sighed as Tatpho pushed out his pheromones, washing over him with his alpha’s scent, and his body relaxed a little. “How does the child call me…?”

“You are the child’s  _ bo-tshin,” _ said Tatpho, tracing out the Chinese characters for  _ bearer _ on his palm for Pieter to see, “and the child calls you Ah Bo.  _ Bo _ from  _ Bo-tshin.” _

“You are Ah Tia, from  _ Tia-tshin?” _ said Pieter. “Right? Or should it be Lau Pe? You call Koxinga Lau Pe…”

“Lau Pe is more respectful,” said Tatpho. “All my father’s children say Lau Pe. As future clan head, I should use it too.”

“What is clan?”

“The big family,” said Tatpho. “Everyone surnamed Tenn.”  _ At least,  _ Tatpho thought, thinking about how he very well may inherit the rule of this whole island.

“Then your son…”

“Yes,” said Tatpho, “one of our sons will inherit from me.”

Pieter twisted in Tatpho’s embrace to face him, and Tatpho saw the omega gather his courage. “Tatpho, please don’t send away your concubine. Please let her stay.”

Tatpho blinked, then his face hardened. “Did she come here? What did she say to you? She can’t harm you in any way. If she said she can, it’s a lie.”

“No, she only asked me to help,” Pieter said. “She’s afraid, she doesn’t want to go.”

“She’ll be fine,” said Tatpho. “I tell you she’s young! She’s just angry because she knows I’m rich. Why does it matter to you if she’s afraid anyway? She hates you!”

“I… I just want to help her… I can’t… I don’t know…” Pieter was averting his eyes and tilting up his chin. “Please let her stay… she could be my servant, or... please...”

The last time Pieter had pleaded for something, Tatpho was destroying his shrine and ignored him. If Tatpho rejected this too, it would make Pieter trust him to care about his desires even less. Damn it. He would have to make it crystal clear to Tin’i that she was not to put one toe out of line from here or she’d be out on the street with not a single belonging.

“Because you want it, I will let her stay,” said Tatpho, and his heart twisted at how Pieter reacted with disbelief even more than with happiness. Pieter hadn’t expected to be able to obtain this favour. Tatpho put a hand up to Pieter’s face and said softly, “When will you realize I want to give you everything you want and need? The concubine is nothing to me, but if you want her as a servant, then she is yours.”

“Thank you…” Pieter’s smile was as sweet and soft as he was. “Thank you.”

“Do you still itch?” Tatpho moved his hands through the opening of Pieter’s unfastened clothes to open them, letting himself indulge in the sight of his omega’s full belly.  _ Mine.  _ The cream smelled herbal but not unpleasant.

“Not as much…”

“I want to touch you all over…” Tatpho looked up at Pieter’s face, grinned, and leaned forward to kiss him. “You’re so soft… every part of you, even this one…”

Pieter let out a little needy sound as Tatpho put his hand inside Pieter’s underwear to stroke his little cock. It stirred to attention as he caressed it.

“Even erect, the skin is so smooth. Lovely… and down here of course is even slicker...” Tatpho moved his fingers down a bit, felt how his omega was getting wetter by the moment, and licked his lips. Was now the time to try tasting him? Maybe not now… Pieter’s belly was so big he wouldn’t even be able to see Tatpho doing that. Instead, Tatpho propped himself up into a semi-reclining position and pulled his omega into his lap.

Pieter untied his own underwear as Tatpho kissed his neck and got his own cock ready to enter him.

“Tatpho,” Pieter sighed as he sank onto his alpha’s cock. “Should I… move?”

“Yes, move, move for me.” Tatpho put his hands beneath Pieter’s butt, both to support his movement and to enjoy touching him. “Let me know if you get tired… I’m not going to hold back, alright?”

Pieter began to move his hips, his belly rubbing against Tatpho’s front as he rose and fell. Slow, heavy… his omega was getting so big from his child…

_ Look at how I filled you…  _ “Magnificent,” Tatpho said aloud as the pleasure began to crest with his omega’s orgasm clenching around him.

“Hah?” panted Pieter, still shuddering and only moving up and down still because Tatpho had gripped him hard and was making him move.

“Magnificent,” Tatpho repeated, “you’re magnificent, Pieter.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand that…”

“Magnificent… great and beautiful… don’t shake your head, mm, don’t deny my words.” Tatpho was so close. The way Pieter’s cunt swallowed and caressed his whole cock down to the base was still incredible no matter how many times he experienced it. “Fuck, I’m gonna knot you.”

“But I’m not, I’m not, I’m only… I’m only...” Pieter whimpered these words into his alpha’s neck as Tatpho’s knot swelled inside him.

“So good,” Tatpho praised as he came. “Ah, cumming… cumming inside my beautiful omega…”

“Tatpho,” Pieter keened, hiding his face even more, “don’t…”

Tatpho gripped onto Pieter's back, kissed the side of his face and stroked his hair as Tatpho's orgasm finished. When Pieter still kept his face turned away, Tatpho said gently, “Let me tell you these things.”

“It’s too difficult.” Still muffled.

“Why is it difficult?”

No answer.

Tatpho kissed Pieter’s temple. They were so close to each other but it wasn’t enough. “Between us, no shyness… let me spoil you, my lovely omega, let me tell you how wonderful you are…”

“But I’m only…”

“Only… what?”

Something too soft to discern.

Tatpho said, “Please tell me.”

“I’m only… only a cunt for fucking, a thing for carrying a child…” It was barely loud enough to be audible.

Tatpho opened his mouth to flatly deny it but immediately closed it again.

Wasn’t that exactly what Tatpho had thought of omegas in general before he bonded with Pieter?

So he needed to be patient with Pieter for thinking of himself that way.

“That’s not true. Don’t you remember what I told you? You are a person to me, the most important person.” When Pieter didn’t respond, he prompted, “You remember?”

“I remember,” he sighed.

“Then why don’t you believe it?” Tatpho couldn’t help saying, but then he answered himself without waiting for Pieter to say anything. “I haven’t proven it to you, I know. But I will. I’ll do what it takes to make you believe this is fate.”

“Fate…” Pieter mused. “I don’t think we have that in Holland.”

Tatpho laughed, and Pieter let his face turn enough to have his mouth kissed. When Tatpho broke the kiss, he said wistfully, “I want to be to you what you are to me, how you enchant me in every way…”

Pieter let out a shaky laugh as well. “What’s enchant?”

“Enchant… like magic, you attract me. My heart feels drunk…” Tatpho searched for words that could describe the feeling. “You make me love you.”

In Hokkien, the common verb for love was the same as for liking and wanting, only distinguishable by context; Tatpho knew what he meant, but Pieter showed he didn’t when he said, “Enchant… so, my scent makes you...”

“Love,” said Tatpho, using the word for the feeling of love as a noun, too frustrated at the language barrier not to be blunt, “do you know this word?”

Pieter whimpered. “I’m sorry…”

_ Fuck.  _ Now Pieter thought he was in trouble. “Don’t be sorry. You’ll learn… you’ve learned so much so fast already. I’m… the one who hasn’t had to change. I should be more patient.”

“Thank you. I know I don’t understand, but I do know… you want to be good to me.” Pieter kissed at Tatpho’s glands, and then yawned.

Tatpho chuckled. “I should be good to you and let you sleep…” He lifted Pieter off his softening cock, and when Pieter started to get out of bed, he caught on to him. “You stay and get under the blankets. I’ll get your dog.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Pieter, surprised.

Tatpho plucked up the squirming little beast and brought it back to the bed, but then when he put the dog down and got in, he spooned Pieter’s back closely and gave the dog a look with fangs over Pieter’s shoulder that sent the dog down to Pieter’s feet.

“Dropje?  _ Wat scheelt er?”  _ Pieter said, confused, but the dog settled down and didn’t budge.

“Maybe it’s too warm,” said Tatpho.

“Ah, maybe…” said Pieter, and settled back against Tatpho and relaxed into his purr.

———

Love.

Pieter had felt the love of his mother and his elder sisters, in their doting and affection.

He had heard the word  _ love  _ spoken very often at church by stern faced men, as well.

Neither gave him much of use to grapple with what it seemed like Tatpho was trying to express to him. Pieter was not stupid, actually he was rather clever by nature, and he could recognize Tatpho’s increasing shower of affection in words, gifts, and touches, he could see the difference in the way Tatpho looked at him.

Ah Gim had laughed and laughed when Pieter asked if there was some special meaning to  _ wa ai li.  _ “Jongeheer houdt van jou,” he had immediately said in Dutch: the young master loves you.

“I didn’t say it was…” Pieter had protested feebly.

“You didn’t have to say it. If anyone else was saying it to you, certainly the young master would kill them.”

That Tatpho was possessive of him, undeniable. That his alpha enjoyed having sex with him, certainly. That the future ruler of his clan valued Pieter as the bearer of his heirs, also reasonable.

But love…

It made Pieter anxious. He had just been trying to stumble from one day to the next alive, to do what was asked of him. But what did this love ask of him?

What if he couldn’t give Tatpho the return he wanted?

How  _ did _ he feel about Tatpho?

Frightened—that was the easiest, the inescapable answer. How could he not be? Tatpho held every power, Pieter had none. Tatpho had bitten him against his will, growled at him on their wedding night, left him alone and pregnant for months to be preyed upon by another alpha, and then destroyed Pieter’s possessions in a fit of rage upon returning.

Sweet words and touches and even apologies and pleadings didn’t erase all of it.

But not having Tatpho at his side was even scarier. Tatpho  _ felt  _ safe, when they were together; and this island, beyond the walls of his little rooms, was so horrible. Even his room wasn’t  _ home. _

Pieter still wanted to go home. He wanted to not be pregnant, not be bonded, not be in Formosa, not be an omega.

He wanted a quiet life as a beta man in Holland, with a kind wife and children that he didn’t have to carry in his own body. Snow on the roof and wood in the fireplace, a steaming meat pie on the table. Walking out the door into a world where no one stared at him.

It was impossible, but he still wanted it.

Having sex with Tatpho was very pleasurable, the most pleasure he’d ever experienced in his life, he had to admit that. And he didn’t hate Tatpho; he knew Tatpho was trying to take care of him as he’d promised, and he wanted to be grateful for that. He even  _ was _ grateful for the effort Tatpho made to make him happy.

But he didn’t love Tatpho. He hadn’t thought that was required. If that was what Tatpho wanted, he didn’t know how to love him.

———

In May of the Dutch calendar, two things happened on the same day: the Dutch formally surrendered to Koxinga, and Pieter van der Stel went into labour with his grandchild.

They told him it was less painful for omegas than for ordinary women but Pieter could only wonder how women didn’t all kill themselves rather than marry in that case. The pangs in his abdomen were so intense and it went on for hours and hours.

“Your first,” soothed the midwife, an older omega. “The next will be faster and by the third time it will be even easier.”

_ The next? The third?! No way in hell! _ But it wasn’t like he would have a choice, was it?

“It will pass,” the midwife promised, every time he was in a contraction. And it always did. Though they came closer together and more intensely, they didn’t last forever.

Then it was time to push.

“When this passes, you’ll have your baby,” encouraged the midwife.

It sounded unbelievable.  _ When this passes. It will end, and then it will really be over! _

“Get out, get out, get out!” he moaned in Dutch, on his hands and knees, clutching at the head of the bed, wanting to escape his own lower body. It was so bad, it was terrible, it was…

Suddenly something was rapidly slipping out from between his legs and the intense pressure immediately eased, so great a relief that it felt almost like pleasure. Pieter breathed, hardly daring to believe that it was really over.

The sound of a baby crying began. The midwife hadn’t said anything to Pieter, so he just let himself collapse slowly onto his front. The fabric beneath his lower body felt cold, wet, and sticky. He eased himself onto his side so that he could see the midwife from the back. 

“An alpha boy,” the midwife said, turning around with a smile. “You’ve done well.”

She brought the baby to him, wrapped up such that only his little face was visible. The baby was calm already, his eyes wide and dark.

Pieter saw all Tatpho, nothing of himself; to him, the baby looked completely Chinese.

The midwife carefully laid the baby down on his back on the bed next to where Pieter was lying. “I’ll tell them the news and be right back. In fifteen minutes or so you’ll deliver the afterbirth.”

Then it was just Pieter and the baby, suddenly.

The baby looked at Pieter’s face with intense concentration.

_ This… really just came out of my body?  _ Pieter hesitantly lifted his hand and reached for the baby’s face, got nerves, and ever so lightly laid his hand on the chest instead.

The little chest rose and fell with the baby’s breathing.

“My son,” Pieter whispered in Dutch, testing the feel of the syllables in his mouth, and then in Chinese, “My son.”

His nose was so tiny and squished, and the little bow of his mouth was moving slightly.

_ He’s adorable…  _ Pieter couldn’t help smiling. He liked children and babies. In hindsight the shameful times he had been caught playing with his sisters’ baby dolls and the harshness of the punishment by his father made cruel sense.  _ He was trying to kill everything omega in me… _

When he thought he was going to be killed on Tatsin’s accusation, Pieter had worried for this child’s life incessantly. But he had not been able to imagine the child actually  _ being  _ alive, alive and with him; his imagination got stuck on the terror of the birth every time.

Deep down, he suddenly realized, he had never imagined a life  _ after _ giving birth. Had his father’s vicious warnings about Eve’s sin and its consequences penetrated his mind that deeply? Apparently so.

The eyes were still bright, still staring back at Pieter.

“You’re so interested in me,” Pieter murmured in Dutch, and then suddenly felt his heart swell. “Of course, because I bore you… I’m your Ah-Bo.” He smiled even wider… he was so tired and so hungry but he felt a strange, a truly unfamiliar happiness looking at his child.

———

When Tatpho was told he had an alpha son, healthy, he smiled, but said urgently, “When can I see them?”

The servant, glad to be delivering such happy news, made an error. “Very soon, my lord. The day after tomorrow, for the bath.”

If he had just left it at “very soon,” he might have been able to delay Tatpho, but describing the actual intended timeline put an end to any patience he had. Tatpho had not been around when his concubine had given birth, and that child had not survived the night. He stood up. “I’m going to see them now.”

Who could oppose him? Certainly not the midwife, who laughed when she heard the commotion of his arrival.

“What’s going on?” said Pieter, who was attempting to get a crying baby to nurse and was already frustrated.

“Your husband, no doubt. Who can expect an alpha to stay away from his omega?”

“Now? But he’s crying,” said Pieter in dismay.

“Babies do,” said the midwife. “I’ll give you privacy when he arrives. I’m sure he’ll order me out if I don’t leave anyway.”

She left as Tatpho came in; Tatpho barely glanced at her.

“Pieter,” he said, suddenly stricken. “You look…”

Pieter wanted to rub at his face self-consciously, but his hands were full with the crying child. “That ugly?”

“You look exhausted,” Tatpho crossed quickly to him, climbing up into the bed. Pieter’s nest had been almost entirely dismantled; only a few bolsters, which Pieter was leaning against, remained, though he was well covered in blankets and dressed warmly. “How long since… have you slept? Have you eaten?”

“I ate… this awful soup…” Pieter’s nose wrinkled. “But I was so hungry that I ate it anyway…”

Tatpho looked down at the baby.

“I’m sorry,” Pieter said, “I can’t get him to nurse, I’m trying…”

Tatpho kissed the side of his head and took the baby from his arms. “It’s alright. Look how well you've done. I’ll get the wet nurse for him. Lie down and sleep. Do you need more pillows?”

“I…” Pieter looked around and said forlornly, “my nest is…”

“More pillows,” purred Tatpho, gingerly getting out of the bed. “But sleep now.”

Pieter obediently slid down flat, but said, “Is it really alright? He’s crying…”

“I’ll take care of him,” promised Tatpho. “What do you want to eat when you wake up?”

An array of Dutch foods fluttered through Pieter’s mind. “...chicken? But simple.”

“Simple?”

“I don’t know how to say… no things in it. Only chicken. The good meat… and rice?” Rice at least was usually plain. After that nasty soup…

“Ah,” Tatpho said, smiling. Yes, the Dutch liked things plain, didn’t they? Pieter had never complained before about food to him, so the soup must have been really something.

His son had stopped crying, and he was huffing a bit but with his eyes closed, as if he would fall asleep soon.

“If he’s calm, maybe I should try again,” said Pieter.

“Both of you can try again after a rest. Come on, close your eyes.” This last he put a bit of alpha command into, and Pieter’s eyes closed and didn’t reopen.

Tatpho resumed purring, watching Pieter to make sure he fell asleep, before looking down at his son again. He was asleep as well.

The baby looked so much like Pieter! It warmed his heart. The hair was dark, but it curled like his bearer’s; the mouth was the same lovely shape, and the skin was pale like his.

Such a precious child… they would have to call the baby a milk name that was even more abject than typical. Takmih, maybe—meaning trash.

Quietly he left the room and found the midwife in the hall. She looked surprised to see him holding the baby.

“Let my omega sleep,” Tatpho instructed, “no one is to wake him up.”

The midwife bowed. “Of course, rest is very important, my lord. I can take the baby for now.”

“I want the wet nurse brought in,” said Tatpho.

The midwife put on a diplomatic face. “My lord’s consort’s milk hasn’t come in yet. It’s too early to give the baby a wet nurse. If he can’t nurse the baby when his milk comes in, it’ll be painful for him. A wet nurse isn’t helpful yet.”

Tatpho frowned, but didn’t say anything.

“As I have my lord’s ear privately,” the midwife said after a moment, “I’ll humbly say, with great respect, that it is absolutely critical that my lord’s consort sit the month correctly. In particular, intercourse must be strictly avoided the whole month. Not only could you seriously injure him now, but it can have devastating repercussions long term. An alpha always wants his omega, but for just these few weeks… and a concubine may bear good children too.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” he said coolly. “What has my omega had to eat?”

“Eh? A typical postpartum stew, my lord. Pig organs and medicinal herbs with ginger and garlic.”

Very strong flavours. “I see. I’ll speak with the servants to arrange more for him to eat when he awakens…”

He trailed off. He had nothing more to say, and he had things to do; he ought to hand over his son to the midwife and get to work. But he didn’t want to. He looked down at the sleeping infant again to memorize the details of his face before begrudgingly handing the baby over. And she left, Tatpho felt his heart went with her. 

_ My son. My heir. Pieter… how I love you. My blessing. _


	11. Chapter 11

When Tatpho came to Pieter's room that evening, he paused outside the door because he could hear Pieter singing softly.

_ "...die drinkt zijn melk zo zoetjes. Slaap, kindje, slaap, daar buiten loopt een schaap." _

His voice sounded so tender and loving. The language barrier couldn't stop Tatpho from understanding that.

_ He loves our son so much already. _

Tatpho opened the door. It had been dark inside, and he saw Pieter blink from the lamp Tatpho was carrying. His omega was sitting up on the bed with their son asleep in his arms, his gown open; perhaps he had been nursing. "Should I put the light out, Pieter?"

"Ah..." Pieter looked a little better than he had before, but that wasn't saying much. "Are you... here...?"

Tatpho wasn't sure what Pieter was trying to say. He hung the lamp on a hook and approached the bed.

When Tatpho got into it, to his surprise Pieter started to panic, releasing distress pheromones, shrinking back and saying, "Wait, I can't... it still... it still hurts... I can't... I don't want to..."

Tatpho was confused, then suddenly realized that Pieter thought Tatpho planned to fuck him. "Pieter, relax," he purred. "I won't fuck you, I won't touch you there. It's okay. It's okay."

Pieter froze, and then burst into tears.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," purred Tatpho, embracing him and supporting the baby in his arms as well. "Everything's fine, I know, you need to heal, I'm going to wait. The whole month I'll wait. I would never hurt you like that. Stop crying now. It's bad for your health to cry. Relax, little fox. That's it." Tenderly he wiped Pieter's face with his inner sleeve as the omega struggled to stop his crying. "I only came to see you and our son. Not to hurt you. Never to hurt you, Pieter. Believe me."

"The whole... month?" said Pieter.

"Didn't anyone talk to you?" Tatpho stroked Pieter's messy hair. "You sit the month, after giving birth. No sex, no chills, no disturbances, no crying... just relax and recover your health. Nurse our son, nothing else."

"Oh," said Pieter. His arms were trembling around the child now, but the baby didn't stir. "I... that's very hard. I want to cry..."

Tatpho kept purring and kissed the side of Pieter's head. "Let’s lay him down on the bed. There. Now you can sleep too. Alright?”

Pieter said, “I… maybe I should eat…”

“Of course. You want more chicken and rice? Something else?”

“Just… not too…”

“Light flavours. I understand. Some of the herbs are good for you, though. I’ll tell them not to put in so much. What else? Why are you sad?” Pieter didn’t answer, and Tatpho added gently, “Really, you can tell me.”

"I want my mother… I missed her for a long time, but now it’s… I want to show her my son and… and..." Pieter's mouth twisted. "I don’t know how to say my… my fear.”

“Fear?”

“My mother lost me… I think, what if lose my son as my mother lost me…” Pieter’s hands gripped the blankets. “I feel like… like…”

Tatpho began purring again because Pieter seemed on the verge of tears, and because he didn’t know what to respond. 

But Pieter didn’t cry this time. Instead he took a deep breath. His face, which had been staring vaguely at nothing, turned and focused on Tatpho. “There is also happiness. He is... beautiful. I love him, just as you said it." Pieter's sad smile reflected to Tatpho the conflict in the omega’s emotions. "How he looks like you."

"Like me?!" laughed Tatpho, startled out of the purr. "But he looks like you!"

"He doesn't look a bit like me," said Pieter, looking at Tatpho in confusion.

"Look at his hair," said Tatpho.

Pieter looked down, and then looked back. "It's black."

"It curls, and it isn't black, it's lighter than black, look. It isn't red but it isn't black. And his mouth is just like yours... his skin… his eyelids..."

"Eyelids?" Pieter asked in confusion. "What is eyelids?" Pieter touched his eyebrow tentatively. “This?”

“No, that is eyebrow.” Tatpho gently touched his own eyelid. "This. Eyelid."

“His eyelids…” puzzled Pieter, staring at the sleeping infant. Pieter was silent a moment, then said, "When I look at him, I don't see myself at all. But... I still love him."

The smile came back as Pieter looked at the baby, less sad this time, and it warmed Tatpho's heart to see it.

“Do you… name the baby?” Pieter said.

“My father will, when he’s old enough to be named.”

“Oh,” said Pieter, disappointment visible.

Tatpho chuckled. “But we can give him a milk name, since my father isn't here. I was thinking Takmih."

"Takmih!" Pieter exclaimed, revolted.

Tatpho was surprised at his reaction, then said, “...do you not use milk names in Holland?”

“What’s a milk name?”

“We give babies a name that is bad,” Tatpho explained, “to keep them safe.”

“Oh.” Pieter still wrinkled his nose. “I don’t think I can call him  _ Takmih…” _ Then he said, quietly, not looking at Tatpho, “Can I… give him a Dutch name…?”

“What name were you thinking?”

It seemed that once again Pieter expected his alpha to deny him. “Timo…”

“Sounds nice. What does it mean?”

Pieter said, “Meaning? O-oh… it’s not really…”

For some reason Pieter didn’t want to tell him. Tatpho decided not to push it. “You can call him that if you want.”

Pieter said nothing, then after a moment said, “Timo means… not in Dutch, but it means...  _ afraid.” _

Tatpho wasn’t sure how to reply to this sudden confession either. “Not in Dutch?”

_ “Latijn,  _ I think?” said Pieter, then, “Ah,  _ nee, Grieks, het is Grieks…” _

For Tatpho, of course, this question of Latin or Greek was all Greek to him.

“Our god… our god’s… book?” said Pieter, struggling to find the words in Chinese to explain. “Our god is from… our god is foreign? The name… Timo is from… our god’s book. So it isn't Dutch.”

A foreign god? The Dutch really were strange… although Buddha wasn’t Chinese either, was he? So perhaps they weren’t so different.

_ Afraid,  _ though...

Pieter yawned.

“I should get you your food, and let you sleep,” said Tatpho. "What do you want? Was the chicken you had before alright? If you think you can handle something a little stronger, it's good for your body."

Pieter nodded, but didn't answer right away, and he appeared to be thinking. Finally he said, "So... a whole month?"

"Yes..."

"Then... your concubine... you can—"

"I told you I wouldn't touch her," Tatpho interrupted. "I can wait a month. I waited longer than that, when we were apart."

"But... I think you should try to give her a child," said Pieter very seriously.

So Tin’i couldn’t wait to meddle! Rage surged inside Tatpho and he kept himself from releasing aggressive pheromones just in time. "She asked you for this."

Pieter shook his head vigorously. "No, she also promised me she would not touch you. But... if she is going to stay... it isn't fair to not give her a child. You can't touch me this month, anyway, so..." Pieter's voice faltered, and then he said, "I've upset you... I'm sorry..."

So Tatpho hadn't concealed his displeasure well enough at all.

The alpha struggled to think of how to respond to his consort's request that he sleep with his concubine. 'Jealousy' was considered immoral in wives; one of the legal bases for divorce was jealousy. One of the responsibilities of the consort of a great man was genteel management of his harem; indeed, selflessly recommending neglected wives and concubines to his bed, to keep harmony within the harem, was specifically lauded.

Pieter was behaving just as he ought to behave, and Tatpho hated it. He wanted Pieter to want to monopolize him, to be desperate for Tatpho's sole favour, to beg Tatpho not to leave Pieter's side even if they couldn't have sex.

"It's because I asked you to get rid of her and now I tell you to take her, isn't it," Pieter said in a quavering way. "I'm... I don't know how to say...  _ wispelturig..."  _ Pieter bit his lip, then said. "My heart quickly changes, so... you're angry."

"I'm not angry at you," said Tatpho, and with Pieter's wide blue eyes looking so sad and confused, tried to be honest. "What upsets me is... I wish... that you wanted me only for yourself. But you are behaving as a consort should, so I'm the wrong one."

Understanding dawned on Pieter's face; then he reddened a little. "I see... then... if it's really okay to want it... once she has a son... touch only me."

Pieter whispered the last part, looking to the side and tilting his chin up... saying such a thing, while making the submission gesture... Tatpho instantly put his mouth to the offered throat, nipping and licking and sucking at Pieter's scent glands, then pulling away with a groan.

"I'll go to her now," Tatpho said,  _ because you've made me hard.  _ "But I'll come back here to keep you company at night."

Pieter actually looked happy at that, but then turned troubled. "But he will cry and wake you."

"Then I'll purr you both back to sleep," Tatpho promised as he left.

He ordered food for Pieter by a servant and also gave him a message for his concubine: wash yourself, but put on no scent, and come to your master's bed, quickly.

While he waited in his bed for her, undressed, Tatpho stroked himself, imagining that in just a few months that Pieter might be ready to go into heat again. He imagined a cold winter day, but coming to a bedroom as fragrant as a garden in full summer bloom, his omega scorching hot in the bed and begging for him. Quenching Pieter's desire with his cock, filling his omega with his seed, planting another child in him. This time there'd be no crying and fear from Pieter. By then... by then, surely, Pieter would love him…

The door opened. Tin’i came in, closing the door behind her very quietly and creeping to the bed in the dark. She knelt on the floor and looked up, her face apprehensive. “My lord.”

“Pieter suggested I take you in my bed while he sits the month, to sire a child on you,” Tatpho said flatly.

Her face lit up, but she quickly lowered her face and body to deepen her bow. "My lord's consort is so kind and generous."

"So he is," said Tatpho. "Extinguish the light and put your clothes by the door so that you may dress before you go."

Tin'i obeyed quickly. She wasn't Pieter, but she was by no means repulsive in her body.

"Mount me," he said, lying back, and she straddled him. He heard her breathing deeply as she put the head of his cock to the entrance of her pussy.

It was all so oddly familiar. When she’d first been given to him, he had fucked her every day—sometimes twice. She had never enjoyed it and it had never occurred to him that she should. When she got pregnant he dutifully stopped fucking her, and that was around the time when they were fleeing the mainland and invading Formosa, so he was busy and didn’t think of her. He heard she had given birth to a beta boy in Takao while he was engaged in the siege of Sakam, and then he heard that the baby had died a few days after birth. And then they had taken Sakam, and he had gotten Pieter.

She let out a pained grunt as she began to fuck herself on him. She was so dry.

Tatpho surprised himself by putting his hand to her pearl and rubbing it.

Her body jerked. “My lord?”

“Shh,” he hushed her, irritated with himself for his concern for her comfort.

She didn’t know what to do.  _ He  _ didn’t know what he was doing. It seemed to be working—he could feel her getting slicker—but she was making noises, and they weren’t exactly noises of enjoyment. Tin’i put her hand over her mouth and he realized she was taking his hushing very seriously.

“I didn’t mean don’t make noise,” he said, even though that had been exactly what he had meant. “Don’t stifle yourself, you sound like a pig.”

She put her hand down on the bed as she worked her body on him, and Tatpho rubbed his thumb on her faster.

Her body felt good.

_ Not as good as Pieter. _

But it felt good…

He didn’t hold back. He’d been masturbating before she got there and it didn’t take much. Her pussy was better than his hand, certainly. He came without popping his knot, grunting, “Coming,” to alert Tin’i that her task was nearly done.

She let her hips stutter to a stop a bit too early, and he moved his hand to her hip to keep her from pulling off, then let her go when he was really done.

Tin’i pulled off, and hurried to the door, grabbed her clothing, dressed, and was gone.

It was what he had told her to do.

Tatpho wiped a cloth over his sticky cock with dissatisfaction.

Everyone was doing what they were supposed to…

He got up and grabbed his robe, and went back to Pieter’s room, letting himself in quietly.

Pieter had his mouth full of food, but he waved his hand awkwardly. Their son was still asleep.

Tatpho came in and laid down on the other side of their son, closed his eyes, and breathed in Pieter’s scent. Without meaning to, he fell asleep.

———

Tatpho fucked Tin’i every day that month.

He wanted Pieter so much, but he touched his omega with only the chastest kisses and caresses. All the intense sexual desire he felt, he vented into Tin’i. 

Spring was becoming summer and there was much work to do ensuring that farming was proceeding apace. Now that the island was theirs, they needed it to prosper and become civilized; otherwise they could never hope to withstand the Manchu, much less to restore the Ming.

But it was dull work, so dull. Takmih and Pieter were the only lights in his eyes, but those lights glowed brighter than the sun.

_ I lay down this foundation for you; you will receive a great inheritance. _

He would come home, nuzzle his omega and his son, and see if their every smallest need and wish had been fulfilled. Tatpho was glad when there was something he could fix for them, some way he could spoil them.

_ See how I care for you, Pieter, and love me. _

He put out a standing order for Dutch things. He tried to make sure he had some new surprise for Pieter every day. Anything to make Pieter happy.

And it seemed to him that Pieter was becoming happier. His smiles were more frequent. Without sex to occupy their time together, Tatpho and Pieter talked more.

Pieter told Tatpho many things about Holland, about his childhood, about the journey across the oceans, about his life in Sakam.

Tatpho told Pieter about his childhood on the southern Chinese coast, about his rivalry with Tatsin, about the Manchu who had overthrown the emperor, about his grandfather’s defection and his father’s decision to take control of Formosa.

For both of them, the dreams and goals of their fathers had completely overwhelmed their life until now. But while Tatpho could expect to eventually assert control of not only his own destiny but that of the entire Tenn clan and potentially the fate of the Ming dynasty, Pieter would never get to make any real decisions for himself.

Part of Tatpho, a large part, felt this was only natural. Yin yielded to yang, yang had to dominate and yin had to submit. Alpha males were double yang, and while omega males had the yang of their male nature, the yin of their omega nature was believed to supercede this. But for the first time he saw how hopeless this made Pieter, how fearful and despairing.

_ “I want impossible things.” _

Pieter had told Tatpho, he even brought it up, that if he had stayed in Holland his omega dynamic would have been publicly discovered eventually.

“The dry heats were so awful. I only had to deal with them five times, but every time was agony. At some point I couldn’t have kept going… and then I suppose I would have had to be a woman, but… who would have married me, with such a scandal? And it’s not as if I know how to act like a woman. I can’t do a woman’s work either. Probably I wouldn’t have been able to find a husband, and then I would have gone insane from the heats and… awful things would have happened...”

“Then isn’t it better to be here?”

Pieter hadn’t said anything in return.

On the last day of sitting the month, Pieter paused mid-bite, because while Tatpho had come to eat with him, the alpha was spending all his time staring moonily at Pieter instead of eating.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Pieter said.

Tatpho grinned sheepishly. “Ah… did you lose track of the time? I suppose it’s only natural that you would, you weren’t supposed to worry about such things after all. This is the last day you sit the month. Tomorrow you will wash and go back to normal.”

Pieter said, “Normal?”

“Normal… regular life. You can go out…” Tatpho trailed off, then pushed on anyway. “I can fuck you again.”

“Oh… of course,” said Pieter in a small voice, and took another bite of rice. His face got red as he chewed.

“Are you afraid?” said Tatpho. “Is there pain still?”

“It’s just embarrassing,” said Pieter.

Takmih began to stir, and Pieter put his tray away and reached for the bowl to place the infant over and cue him to urinate.

A servant came to the door. “My lord, your father has had good weather. He will be here tomorrow.”

———

About a month after the Dutch surrender, Koxinga arrived back in new triumph in Takao, leading with him all the women and children of Zeelandia as hostages to ensure the Dutch forces' good behaviour as they continued their negotiated withdrawal.

The total number of hostages were only a few dozen, of whom more than half were children. Even so, Pieter felt profound shame as he stood behind his husband, who was greeting the returning troops with exultation. Even if there had only been one Dutch woman, this was still his homeland come to see how Pieter had debased himself.

A traitor, a coward, a craven slut.

It was even worse because this was Pieter's first time in public since giving birth. All things considered, Pieter had really enjoyed sitting the month. Holing up in one room like a troll was pretty much what Pieter always wanted to do anyway, and now it was societally sanctioned. Tatpho indulged him in what he wanted to eat. Tatpho even came home about a week after the birth, glowing with pride to tell Pieter that he’d gotten him a cook who used to work for a Dutch household and who knew how to  _ bake,  _ that the cook was assembling their own oven out in the courtyard.

Bread! Cookies! Pastry! Pie! Pieter had cried when he was served a Dutch style meat pie, and then immediately started frantically begging Tatpho not to fire the cook because of these forbidden tears.

Tatpho had laughed and kissed him and promised never to fire the cook.

His son Timo was so adorable, soft and wonderful and just instinctively  _ good  _ in a very primally satisfying way. Pieter marveled at tiny fingernails, breathed in his amazing baby scent, and felt the velvety softness of his skin.

_ My son. My baby. My child. You’ll be happy and free... _

Pieter had actually felt sustained periods of happiness. Perhaps more than ever before in his life.

As it was the one month mark, Pieter bathed, and he was allowed to read and write again. As soon as he had time, he wanted to write a letter to his mother. He wanted to assure his mother that her son was healthy and coping well with his new life. Now that he had his own son, he knew he would want to know that in her place.

Timo also had his first haircut. To Pieter’s dismay, they shaved his head. The servants laughed at him and told him that shaving the baby’s hair off would make it grow back even thicker. Pieter was not sure he wanted that. They said they would us the baby’s hair to make brushes, but Pieter took some to send to his mother.

_ I think I will learn to be happy, Mother. I love my son so much. _

He had not been ashamed as he had written it. But now he was being made to confront just how low he had sunk, how great was his degradation, and how complete his betrayal of his homeland, as he saw himself as he must appear in the prisoners’ eyes.

It wasn’t even a once and done humiliation. With his red hair, Pieter stood out among the welcoming crowds like a sore thumb. First they would see him, and realize there was a European there celebrating Koxinga’s triumph, and there would be an initial shock on their faces. Then they would keep looking at him, trying to figure out who he was.

Among them were at least some who had heard from somewhere who Pieter was, or perhaps more accurately, whom he had once been. He saw it pass over the crowd in a sensation, spread from person to person. And when the welcoming was over, Pieter was given the task to showing them to their genteel imprisonment, which meant speaking to Mrs. Coyett, whom he had known in his old life.

“This is where you will be staying until you have been ransomed, and I am very sorry,” Pieter said in a stricken voice. His tongue felt thick in his mouth, as if he shouldn’t dare to speak Dutch anymore.

“Nobody can blame you,” Mrs. Coyett said, her expression kind but aloof. “I understand that none of the other women of Sakam will be released either. And for you, in particular, what your whole life has been… I cannot comprehend the villainy of your father, forcing you to pretend to be a boy all this time.”

Pieter did not know how to answer this at all. Now that he had given birth, he was back in Chinese style  _ men’s  _ clothing, altered only to reveal his bond collar. He decided to move on to the rest of what he needed to say. “My husband is Koxinga’s heir, and I… have a small amount of influence with him. I will do all I can to ensure that you are given enough to eat and not otherwise mistreated before you leave.”

“I am sure you will do what you can,” Mrs. Coyett said. “What do we call you?”

“They call me  _ Tshenn Phitngoo _ now, which means Consort van der Stel,” Pieter explained awkwardly. “They… don’t change their names when they marry, here.”

“Consort van der Stel,” said Mrs. Coyett. “Well, at least you’ve been spared from an odious fate as a concubine. I understand that most of our women have been sold as concubines. Humiliation upon humiliation.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what’s become of anybody else from Sakam,” said Pieter. “I suppose I should ask, so that you can carry the news away with you when… when you leave.”

“That will be very good of you,” said Mrs. Coyett. “You, too, must want us to carry a letter for your family.”

“Yes… I have a letter and… a lock of hair from my son…” Pieter felt his face turning scarlet. When he’d tenderly packed up his baby’s memento, he’d only been thinking of how he yearned for his mother to be able to touch her grandson and how this was the closest possible imitation. But bringing up his son’s existence meant making it crystal clear that Pieter was being fucked by the son of the man who killed his father.

Mrs. Coyett’s genteel smile twitched. “As you think best, my dear.”

Pieter took a breath. “I’ll let you settle in. I’ll be back to check on you daily.”

Mrs. Coyett curtseyed, and Pieter bowed. When he got to the door and turned back briefly, the faces of the white women were all full of pity and fear looking after him. The Chinese and native women showed no interest in him at all, talking amongst themselves or to their children.

———

“Tatpho, Tatpho… ah, ah, alpha! St-stop,  _ ik word… oh mijn God... _ ”

Tatpho let Pieter’s sweet little cock slip out from between his lips and grinned up at his lovely omega. “You want me to stop?”

Pieter had tears running down his face. “I might cum,” he whimpered, “I… ah,  _ heb genade…  _ I want to cum, alpha…”

“You want to cum with me inside you?” Tatpho glowed with pride, and quickly crawled up Pieter’s body. “I think I’ve gotten you nice and wet for me now… all relaxed and ready to be fucked.”

Pieter tensed and closed his eyes as he felt Tatpho’s cock touch his entrance, but Tatpho purred until the omega relaxed again before pushing slowly inside.

“My lovely, my dear, my sweet, my darling,” Tatpho praised softly into Pieter’s ear once he was fully seated inside him, because tears were still leaking from his closed eyes. “Is it very painful? You feel wonderful around me.”

“The feeling…  _ het prikt…  _ I don’t know how to say… it hurts a little, but…”

Tatpho pumped out more pheromones and licked at Pieter’s gland. “Tell me when I can move. You’re doing so well.”

“I think… ah… make it… not long…”

Even reaching between them to touch Pieter’s cock, Tatpho had a difficult time making Pieter cum until he had the sudden bright idea to alpha command Pieter to relax and cum. The pride and self-satisfaction he felt making the omega achieve the orgasm he had begged for propelled Tatpho into orgasm too. Though he had been dreaming of knotting Pieter since the moment he gave birth, he refrained. Best to wait until ordinary sex was no longer painful before including his knot again.

Pieter looked confused as Tatpho pulled out and took him into his arms, purring. “You… no knot…?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” purred Tatpho, kissing Pieter’s face and neck.

Pieter started to cry, surprising Tatpho even more.

“Shhh,” he soothed, trying not to let himself get upset which would come out in his pheromones. “It’s okay, little fox. What’s wrong? Tell me.”

“I… I’m starting to be happy with you,” Pieter wept.

“My little fox… my dear little fox.” Tatpho held Pieter close until both of them had fallen asleep.


	12. Chapter 12

“Good morning, Mrs. Coyett,” Pieter said, as the guards closed and locked the door behind him. “Ah… it’s my birthday, so… I brought some _ traktaties _ for you all…”

_ “Koeken!” _exclaimed the teenagers and adults, while some of the small children tugged on their mothers and asked what the little cakes were.

“They’re not… we have no milk or butter, of course, so…”

Despite the inauthentic recipe, the baked goods were received with great delight by those who came from Holland and with curiosity by those who were born in Formosa.

Pieter pulled back from the others with Mrs. Coyett, who was nibbling politely on the snack.

“Felicitations on your birthday, my dear,” she said while Pieter was readying himself to speak. “How old are you now?”

“Nineteen,” said Pieter. "Mrs. Coyett… I’m afraid I have some unhappy news for you.”

The always composed and superior Mrs. Coyett showed surprise for only a brief moment. “Oh? I suppose there can be no happy news until you tell us that we are finally going to leave.”

“There will be a delay,” Pieter said, his hands clasped together inside his big sleeves. “Because… Governor Coyett has been charged with treason for his surrender of Formosa… and the Dutch are now attempting to renegotiate the terms.”

That rattled her. At first she just stared, going pale and furrowing her brow. Then she pressed her lips together very tightly for a moment, and then said, “I see.”

“My husband seems to think they will eventually relent and agree to the original terms, but Lord Koxinga is not willing to make any concessions to them, so I don’t know how long it will take… I’m afraid I must ask you not to ask me to plead for Lord Koxinga to make concessions. I don’t have that kind of influence with him.”

“I see,” the thin, bloodless lips managed again.

“But I’ll continue to do what I can for your conditions here,” Pieter hastened to add, “and… and my husband says there are some other women and children who have been found, whose… whose owners are willing to let them go cheaply…”

It was certainly a hollow consolation. From what Tatpho had nonchalantly said, some ordinary Chinese men had found Dutch wives and concubines “more trouble than they’re worth”, and gladly taken Tatpho’s token offer to maintain face. But Pieter didn’t want to think about what the women had experienced. They were betas, they wouldn’t have the bond to protect them from maltreatment. As for the children, in two cases, the Chinese man who kept the mother as a concubine was letting the child go, but not the mother. Of course, the mothers wanted to let their children go to Holland, but this would mean never seeing their children again. A nightmare choice.

“Of course," said Mrs. Coyett. “Of course, we are all very grateful to you… after all, we will all eventually get to leave, so our sufferings are nothing compared to yours.”

_ Suffering… _Pieter smiled weakly. “Well, I must be going, Mrs. Coyett. Goodbye.”

———

Tatpho saw Ah Gim standing in the back as he entered the hall where they were meeting the Dutch for yet another attempt at negotiation, and frowned. Ah Gim ought to have been next to his father…

“Father,” he said quietly after kowtowing to his father where Koxinga sat alone, “shouldn’t Ah Gim come up now?”

“I want another translator today,” his father grumbled, rubbing his temple. “I’m fed up with this.” He gestured dismissively at the three Dutchmen and their translator who were standing nearby.

Before Tatpho could ask who, he saw the expressions on the Dutchmen’s faces change from cross to shocked and confused, and turned to see that his consort was being led in.

Pieter was behaving with perfect decorum for a formal, public appearance by a high ranking consort—keeping his eyes lowered to the ground, moving with small steps as if his feet were bound. His dress was exquisite, green-blue with paired magpies in flight down the shoulders and a matching pattern on the open fan he held in one hand. Smoothly he snapped the fan shut as he sank down before his father-in-law and pressed his forehead to the ground.

If it wasn't for his face and the rust-red of his hair, which even braided and pinned looked far more untamed than it ought to be, he would have passed as a Chinese raised in the most correct and elevated household.

Tatpho saw how his father had changed in an instant from irritable and combative to positively glowing with pride and pleasure. "Stand up, Tsioh'a."

Pieter rose gracefully, eyes still lowered to the hem of Koxinga's gown, the fan spreading back open in his hand.

"I want you to translate for me with these men. Introduce yourself to them."

Pieter's eyes raised and his head turned. His cheeks went scarlet as he saw the Dutchmen staring at him with open disgust.

Tatpho controlled himself with effort. He saw what his father was doing now, of course. He was angry at the Dutch and he wanted to show what he thought of them, by taunting them with how he'd made one of the captured prisoners into the perfect obedient consort—an implied threat to their hostages, a warning that if the Dutch didn't cooperate quickly, they would lose all the women and children for good.

But this couldn't be other than the most severe humiliation for Pieter. Pieter, who was so shy and self-critical at the best of times.

He wished Pieter would look at him, so he could try to tell his omega with his eyes that he hadn’t known about this and didn’t approve of it, that he would be there for Pieter after this ordeal was finished, but Pieter had let his eyes drop to the floor again.

_ “Mijn naam is Pieter van der Stel,” _ he said, soft, but clear. _ “Mijn vader was gouverneur van Sakam. We werden gevangen genomen door de Chinezen… en ik was getrouwd met de soon van Heer Koxinga. Heer Koxinga wil dat ik vertaal.” _

The Dutchmen looked at each other, then the leader spoke back to Pieter. Though Tatpho couldn’t understand his words, the hostility of his tone was clear, as was the even deeper flush of Pieter’s face.

“Translate it as he said it,” Koxinga said, lightly, as if amused, when the Dutchman finished talking. “Don’t spare me their insults.”

“He asks if my lord already made the other Dutch women into whores as well,” Pieter said without raising his eyes.

Tatpho snarled, and didn’t notice that Pieter’s eyes darted up for a brief moment to look at him. The alpha’s attention and his aggression were all on the Dutch representatives who had insulted his omega.

Koxinga on the other hand laughed. “Tell him if thinks that we’ve treated _you_ like a whore, then there will be no word low enough for what the other prisoners will become, if the Dutch don’t agree to follow our treaty. It’s been months and I’m out of patience. Tell them: This is the last day I will offer you the same terms. If you won’t accept, then the treaty is off altogether, and I look forward to killing your men when they invade!”

Pieter’s voice cracked as he translated, but he remained otherwise still in face and body.

The Dutch conferred amongst themselves, then spoke to Pieter.

“They’ll take the terms,” Pieter said.

Koxinga said, “Ah Gim, go with them to arrange the boats and the payments.” When the Dutch were gone, he said cheerfully to Tatpho, “Comfort your omega,” and then sauntered off himself.

Pieter started to tremble as Tatpho took him into his arms, purring and speaking softly. “I didn’t know my father was going to do that. It makes me angry, that he let them call you a whore. You’re not a whore. You are my precious mate.”

“But—” Pieter seemed to stop himself. “Please, husband, take me home.”

Pieter shielded his face with his fan and didn’t say another word until they were home, where the sound of a baby crying could be heard.

Pieter wiped his face with his inner sleeve before folding away his fan and taking off his shoes. _“Ik wil m’n kind,”_ he said to his semi-Dutch-speaking servant, who said back, _“Ja, meneer!”_ cheerfully and went off.

Tatpho hadn’t been able to follow Pieter’s rapidly spoken and complicated Dutch during the negotiation, but he knew by now that _ik wil m’n kind_ meant “I want my baby.”

“Pieter,” said Tatpho, and Pieter flinched and tilted his chin up.

On one level Tatpho didn’t like this reaction—yet another proof that Pieter was still afraid of him—but he did not fight his own instinctive response, putting his lips to Pieter’s throat and sucking on his scent gland tenderly.

“Husband,” Pieter whimpered, a sound that went straight to Tatpho’s cock, but then he followed it with, “husband, please wait… our son…”

Tatpho released Pieter and stepped back. The sound of the baby crying was getting louder and louder, and soon Tin’i appeared with Takmih, bundled and bawling.

Pieter smiled as he took his son from her, but Tatpho frowned. “Why are you carrying him?” he said suspiciously to his concubine.

“My lord consort asked me to help with him,” said Tin’i nervously, head bowed.

Tatpho looked at Pieter, who was fumbling with his robes to let Takmih nurse. “Is that true?”

Pieter flinched again, and the startle made Takmih change from crying to screaming. “Ah, I’m sorry, I… I wasn’t listening…”

“You aren’t in trouble,” purred Tatpho. “Take Takmih to your room, I’ll be along in a little while.”

Once Pieter was gone, Tatpho rounded on Tin'i. "If you dare harm a hair of my son's head, I will _destroy _you," he hissed. "And it won't be a quick death."

Tin'i kept herself bowed but her voice wasn't surprised. "I know, my lord! I know! I would never... my lord consort is everything that is most kind...! My lord consort told me that he hopes I will soon conceive my own child and that I can practice... my lord, I know full well how much I am indebted to my lord consort! I have never heard of a consort so kind to a concubine!"

Stories of rival wives and concubines poisoning each others' children were part of the histories every child heard growing up, and Tatpho had seen with his own eyes, how his father’s wives and concubines would stop at nothing to advance their children against their half-siblings. His own mother had never hesitated to sabotage a rival. Tatpho couldn't trust her, no matter what Tin'i said, no matter how Pieter felt. Pieter! Pieter had a heart more forgiving and trusting than a child! "Whatever my consort says, you are _ never _ to be alone with my children by him again, or I will beat you soundly with my own hands and turn you away with nothing. Clear?"

"Yes, my lord."

Tatpho started to move towards the hall to Pieter's room, but Tin'i didn't get out of the way. "What is it?"

"M-my lord..." Tin'i's voice quavered. "I think it is likely that I may be pregnant also..."

"Then rest," Tatpho said indifferently, and then with heat, "you're in my way now."

Tin'i got out of his way.

In Pieter’s bedroom, their son was finally quiet, nursing on Pieter as he reclined in bed. Pieter looked up at him nervously. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what you said to me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tatpho said, sitting at Pieter’s feet. “But Tin’i isn’t allowed near Takmih anymore. She’s dangerous to him.”

“Yes, my lord,” Pieter said, dropping his gaze.

“You’re not in trouble,” Tatpho repeated.

Pieter tried to smile, though he didn’t raise his eyes. “You are very patient with my stupid mistakes.”

Tatpho didn’t know how to answer that. He didn’t want to think about Tin’i anymore. He just wanted Pieter to feel better. “Are you hungry?”

“Tatpho… you don’t have to be so… I’m alright, really."

"I can tell that you're not. You're unhappy."

"It's because..." Pieter was looking at Takmih. He put his finger to the baby's hand and let the infant reflexively grip onto it, and Pieter's smile warmed and became genuine, even as he continued. "When I heard them, I remembered everything. But they will go away soon and then... then I can just stay here, right? With you, and with Timo. I can forget forever."

It sounded like it might be hopeful, but Tatpho didn't understand, and he wanted to. "What do you mean?"

Pieter sighed. "I don't know how to say it... I am... I know, I am bad..."

"You're not bad!" Tatpho said, unable to keep his frustration out of his voice, even with how desperately he didn't want to scare Pieter.

Pieter didn't flinch this time, at least. He simply shook his head. "If I were a Chinese... if I were your omega brother, and I let a Dutchman take me as a wife... gave him a child, and kept living... you would hate me. It's the same thing."

Tatpho quickly moved up the bed, straddling Pieter's legs and startling him into looking up, their faces close enough that their noses almost touched. "This is destiny," Tatpho said, reaching his hand to cradle Pieter's face. "It's _ destiny, _Pieter, it's heaven who chose you for me—me for you. It doesn't matter what any man thinks about it. It would be the same thing, if you were Chinese and I was Dutch."

This wasn't going how Tatpho wanted at all. Pieter looked ready to cry. "Heaven?" he said in a tremulous voice.

Tatpho nodded, and while he was trying to think of what to say next, Pieter spoke again.

"We... we have... I know I said, we don't have destiny in Holland, but... our God's book, it says about marriage... _ Hetgeen dan God samengevoegd heeft, scheide de mens niet... _ and that means, ah... God put them together, men do not divide them."

"So then your god agrees," said Tatpho, thanking heaven that the stupid Dutch had managed to get one thing right.

"I guess he does," said Pieter.

“Then, you’re not bad,” Tatpho encouraged. “Right?”

“I’m…” Pieter didn’t look entirely convinced, but he made a watery smile. “I’m not bad.”

Tatpho closed the small distance and kissed his mate, softly and gently, mindful that their son was in the space between them. Then he pulled back and got off the bed.

“I’m sure my father will send for me at any moment,” he said, adjusting his clothing. “May I come to you tonight?”

“Of course,” Pieter said, but the smile that went with it seemed genuine, so Tatpho smiled back.

———

Pieter gingerly slid his pinky into Timo’s mouth to break the suction, allowing his nipple to slip out of the sleeping baby’s mouth without waking him. A nice trick that one of the servants had taught him.

Carefully, Pieter eased the baby down onto the bed between himself and his alpha.

It must be just after dawn. The world outside was starting to get lively already, but in his bedroom all was still quiet.

Tatpho was breathing deeply and peacefully, and Pieter looked down at his handsome face in the growing light.

Handsome… Tatpho really was handsome. Even the scar under his eye just made him look more manly. Someone who had fought and won.

Part of Pieter wanted to move his baby out of the way, get right next to his alpha, rest his head on Tatpho’s chest and ask for a purr. Tatpho would do it, no question. He’d smile and stroke Pieter’s red hair and call the omega his needy little fox.

Tatpho did everything for Pieter. Well, everything he could do.

But Pieter couldn’t bear to risk waking up Timo. He seemed to be coming down with a little cold and needed his rest.

Pieter looked down again at Timo, at his innocent little baby face, and a thought that he’d been having increasingly often recurred to him again.

How could Pieter’s father have been so cruel?

Timo was an alpha, but if he was an omega Pieter would love him just the same and wish and act for his happiness.

The memories swirled, disjointed and out of order.

_ “Don’t play with that. It’s for girls.” _

_ “Stop crying. You’re disgusting.” _

_ “If anyone ever finds out, you’ll be raped, do you understand? You’ll deserve what you get, if you don’t listen to me and do exactly as I say…” _

_ “Just resist it. Be a man.” _

_ “What are you smiling like that for? I’ll wipe it off your face.” _

_ “I said Pieter’s coming with me and that’s final. Stop letting him cling onto you right now.” _

Alpha commanding his mother with that last. He had sent her back inside and Pieter hadn’t gotten to kiss her goodbye.

Where before Pieter had always felt just misery and helplessness with all things about his father, now he was beginning to feel something he was quite unused to. Anger.

His father, as the most senior figure on the ship and later in Sakam, not only usually read the Bible at the church service but even preached the sermon when a minister could not. And of course he always led the daily prayers in their home.

_ “Would any man, if his son asked for bread, would give him a stone? Or if he asked for fish, would give him a snake?” _

All Pieter had ever wanted as a child was to stay with his mother and his sisters… how he had begged for it, pleaded and wept for it…

What was wrong with his father?! How could he talk about the elect being “chosen by God” and “known by their fruits” and yet still look at his own deeds and think he was heaven-bound?

Maybe his father had only ever thought of hell as a weapon to beat Pieter with.

Just as Tatpho had promised, he had dutifully obtained a number of pictures of “your goddess and her son” for Pieter. Some of them outright Papist, obtained from Spaniards mainly. Tatpho had seen the shock in Pieter's face upon seeing a picture of the Madonna with a crown and a halo in a throne, her bare breast inviting the infant to nurse, and said to Pieter, “You don’t like that one—I’ll take it away.”

But without knowing exactly why he wanted it, Pieter had insisted to keep it and to hang it up. It could be dimly seen on the wall, alongside the rest of Pieter’s shrine.

The omega lay back down and let his thoughts drift.

Papists, his father had said scornfully, made Maria their god, and would all go to hell for their idolatry.

Was that really so? Maria was always so lovely and kind—in art, in the Bible scriptures.

Certainly, Pieter could not imagine Maria giving Jezus stones and snakes instead of bread and fish. Jezus, surely, loved his mother very much, just as Pieter loved his mother. So, if Jezus was God, and Maria was God’s mother, then, surely, Jezus would understand if Pieter loved Maria? Felt comfort in looking at Maria? Surely, a kind God would understand...

Pieter’s eyes closed, and he fell back asleep.

Then he awoke to the feeling of two hands gently pulling apart his thighs, and then the shock of a hot tongue licking a stripe up from his entrance all the way to the tip of his little cock.

“Ohh…” he moaned, his eyes focusing on Tatpho’s smirking face as it hovered above his hips.

“Takmih is with the nurse,” Tatpho said. “I know it’s selfish to wake you, but I’ve got to have you before I leave… you can sleep again after, if you’re still tired.”

With that, Tatpho leaned back down to lap at Pieter’s slit again, darting his tongue inside and encouraging the moaning omega to slick up.

“Such a pretty cunt,” Tatpho said with glistening lips when he pulled back again. “I think it’s wet enough to take my cock now.”

Pieter responded by spreading his legs wider. Tatpho’s smirk changed to a look of vulnerable surprise as Pieter reached for him, and he eagerly climbed up Pieter’s body.

“Little fox,” he whispered, “you want it?”

“I want you,” Pieter whispered back. _ I want you—I love you. _The ambiguity of the language made it easier to say.

_ “Pieter,” _ Tatpho said, so much love and happiness in his smile, and Pieter realized that he was smiling too.

Tatpho kissed him as his cock slid inside, and he didn’t move at first when he was settled deep within, just kissing Pieter and playing with tendrils of his unruly hair.

“My Pieter,” Tatpho murmured, breaking the kisses at last and beginning to thrust. “You’re mine, and I’m yours. Tell me you’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” Pieter said, and that was surprisingly easy to say too, now. Tatpho… if he belonged to Tatpho and Tatpho belonged to him, then things couldn’t be that bad… _ Pieter _ couldn’t be that bad, because Tatpho loved him this much. “I’m all yours, only yours, Tatpho.”

Tatpho groaned and moved his hips faster. With every stroke, he was filling Pieter, rubbing against all the places inside that sent jolts of pleasure through the omega. “Touch yourself,” Tatpho urged.

Pieter obeyed, reaching between them to rub his dick and keening as he came, feeling little globs of hot cum spurting up and falling down onto his stomach.

“Yes, that’s it, beautiful,” Tatpho praised, watching Pieter’s expression as he orgasmed. “Cumming around me. Perfect.”

“Tatpho… it feels good, your cock is so good…”

Tatpho kissed his forehead. “Only pleasure, now? No more pain?”

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” Pieter assured him, “you can knot me.”

“Oh fuck, Pieter! Can I really? Fuck, I’m going to… I’ve missed knotting your cunt so much, fuck, _ fuck…” _His hips slammed down with a loud squelching smack.

Pieter cried out as he came again around his alpha’s rapidly expanding knot.

When the high was ebbing for both of them, Pieter brushed a sweaty lock of hair off of Tatpho’s face and smiled, quietly enjoying his husband’s handsome face in the morning light.

“Are you… you still feel… how…” Tatpho looked almost shy as he struggled with his words. “It doesn’t hurt…?”

“It really doesn’t hurt.”

“I’m glad… I don’t want you to hurt.”

“I know.” Pieter did know, he knew what Tatpho wanted. Happiness. Happiness together, without regard to how they got to this point or what anyone outside of the two of them felt about them.

He didn’t know how to say it, but Pieter was finally ready to want that too.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will probably be an epilogue, but this is the completion of the main story.


	13. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A reminder once again that the timeline in this alternate universe is not the same as real history, although some of the major themes (conflicts with the Dutch, the Qing Dynasty, and the Spanish) remain the same. In my alternate universe, Tatpho's reign as king of Taiwan is more secure and less scandalous than that of Koxinga's actual historical successor Zheng Jing. Historically the Zheng clan did manage to surrender to the Qing dynasty in the end in a relatively successful way (ie preserving a great deal of their status, wealth, and lives); I imagine that Tatpho's son did even better in this alternate universe.

Timo watched with wide eyes as Dropje barked, dropped down onto his belly atop the bed, crawled forward, stood up, and barked again.

“Dropje, are you trying to teach him to crawl?” laughed Pieter, speaking in Dutch. “You’re so clever, good boy.” He rubbed the pup’s head affectionately. “Do you think Timo is a puppy? You must think he’s very slow for a puppy. Already six months old and not even crawling!”

Timo turned his eyes from the dog to his bearer. His lips moved soundlessly, then he looked at the dog again, and then he began rolling closer to Pieter.

“Are you hungry, my angel? Or do you just want Ah Bo?” Pieter picked him up, and Timo began tugging at Pieter’s clothes. “Ah, you are hungry. Alright, alright. Won’t Lau Pe be surprised, when he comes home and finds you so fat! Maybe that’s why you can’t crawl, you’re too heavy!”

Outside, a commotion was starting. Dropje barked to make sure Pieter knew about it, nudging his owner’s knee.

“I hear it, Dropje. Do you think it really might be…?”

Tatpho had been gone for a few weeks, not fighting the Dutch this time, but rather seeing to a clash between Tatpho’s people and some other Chinese. Pieter did not really understand what the fight was about, but he was not seeking to understand very much. Tatpho said he didn’t expect it to be very difficult to resolve.

Dropje sniffed the air, barked with great enthusiasm, and ran off, still barking. Not far away, lots of similar barking could be heard, and Pieter frowned, a little concern. Dropje was just a little dog—what if he ran into a pack of rougher beasts?

A servant came in. “Lord Koxinga is here,  _ meneer.  _ Shall I take the child and call for you to be dressed?”

Reluctantly, Pieter removed Timo from his nipple. The baby fussed, then began to cry in earnest when he was given to the servant. “Has my lord asked for me?”

“Not yet, but…”

_ But why else would he be here,  _ Pieter supplied in his mind, and sighed. “Take my son to be given some porridge.”

He was dressed properly when Lord Koxinga called for him. When Pieter went out to where his father-in-law was waiting for him, he nearly forgot to kowtow, because he was so surprised to see not only Dropje, running about barking manically, but a whole pack of the same kind of dog, servants unloading them in cages.

Dropje came over and licked at Pieter’s hands while he remained bowed, and Koxinga laughed. “Go ahead and get up, Tsioh’a. Where is my grandson?”

Pieter got up but kept his eyes down. “He is eating, Takuann.”

Koxinga grabbed his chin and tilted it up gently. “No need to be so shy. How many times do I need to tell you, Tsioh’a, while your husband is away, you should come to me with all your needs and wants?” To a servant, he called out, “Bring my grandson here as soon as he’s had enough to eat.”

Pieter blushed under Koxinga’s indulgent smile. He still had no idea how to take Koxinga’s favour. “Have you eaten, Takuann?”

“Yes, yes.” Koxinga laughed again. “Tsioh’a, my son clearly isn’t spoiling you enough, for you to still be this timid. Aren’t you going to demand to know why I am filling your home with these dogs?”

“My home belongs to Takuann,” Pieter said, and Koxinga’s smile widened with approval.

“I've found a good alpha for my daughter," Koxinga said. "I'll let her take some of the dogs with her, but these others are for you. I'm having a kennel built for you now, and you'll take those servants."

"Oh," said Pieter, counting the dogs in his mind.  _ ...ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen... thirteen new dogs? _

———

When Tatpho did return, he sought to go in quietly, as he simply wanted to return to his omega’s side privately, not to have a grand and formal reception with servants looking on.

However,  _ quietly _ was the opposite of what happened. A thunder of barks and yips erupted as he approached his home, and it got louder as he went in and louder still as he went to his omega’s room.

“Oh, Tatpho! Welcome home!” Pieter said joyously, and then sternly to the dogs,  _ “Stil! Stil, stop met blaffen, er is niets mis. Stil, het is m’n man. Lastpakken!” _

Pieter was, with difficulty, extricating himself from at least four dogs who were blocking his way to where Tatpho stood dumbstruck in the doorway. He felt dogs sniffing at his legs, but he did not look down to see them because he was staring at how his son—it  _ must _ be his son, but could he have really grown so much so quickly?—was sitting up, with a dog lying down on each side of him.

“Your father gave me these dogs,” Pieter said anxiously, standing a little away from Tatpho. “Are you very upset?”

“You don’t let them sleep in the bed with Takmih?” Tatpho demanded suspiciously.

“No, no, I was sure you wouldn’t like that,” said Pieter, though he sounded a little sad about it. “They sleep in the kennel—except Dropje, but Dropje… Dropje is… He’s well-behaved and he always sleeps on the side away from the baby, so…”

Tatpho sighed, but then he smiled, and reached out his arms to Pieter; and when Pieter’s face smoothed back into a bright smile and he eagerly embraced his alpha, even the mild irritation of discovering that his house was now infested with canines faded away.

Takmih regarded his sire with some suspicion, but when Tatpho let his scent out and began to purr, recognition dawned on his little face, and Tatpho wanted to melt.

“He recognizes you!” Pieter said in a choked voice, and Tatpho looked over to see that his silly little fox was trying not to cry.

Tatpho picked his son up into his arms and let his omega hug him from the side and thought that even the dogs still romping all over the place added an element of liveliness to his idyllic life.

———

At the Chinese New Year where Tatpho turned twenty-two, his father declared himself king of Tangto, a new official name for this island Formosa.  _ Tang, _ east, and  _ to,  _ capital. A reference to how this was meant to be a government in exile for the rightful Han rulers of China against the Manchu invaders who currently controlled their land.

His concubine gave birth to a boy, a beta. Tatpho provided for Tin’i and his son in their own house in another part of the island. Pieter was sad to see Tin’i go; Tatpho knew Pieter had felt empathy with the woman, but Tatpho could not relax from the idea that Tin’i could hurt him during Tatpho’s absence.

In the summer of that year, his father became desperately ill with malaria.

They had been successfully raiding settlements in the northern Philippines and preparing an invasion on Manila itself, but his father’s malaria—and his accompanying delerium—put an end to this.

Though Tatpho had by far the strongest claim as heir, at the same time, there were certainly rivals within the clan who might make a grab for actual power, especially when his father’s delirium was causing him to make wild statements.

At one point, he asked for his son Tatsin, and when he was told that Tatsin was dead, he had demanded to know if Tatpho had killed him, and said that he would kill Tatpho himself.

Tatpho and his allies had kept that story under wraps, but there was no telling what might happen.

Personal loyalty—that was what he needed from the men. Respect for him as a leader. And to ready for the attacks that would certainly come, and be ready to prove himself as leader.

As king.

There were brief periods of lucidity from his father. During one such, he asked to see Tatpho and his grandson.

Cautious of his father’s illness, yet obedient, Tatpho brought the boy to see his grandfather.

The king of Tangto was resting, propped up, in bed. He smiled at the toddler for a moment and then said to Tatpho, “He is very strong. Even stronger than you, when you were his age. Tsioh’a will give you more sons like him, I’m sure.”

Tatpho, kneeling at the bedside, said, “I am more grateful every day that my father gave me my consort.”

“Wise child.” His father laughed. “Tshiauguan…” It was the real name of Takmih. “Next boy will be Tshiauhing. Then Tshiau’i. Then Tshiauken.” He showed the characters to Tatpho on his palm. “If Tsioh’a gives you more sons than that, you can name the rest."

He didn't make any suggestions for daughters, nor did it surprise Tatpho that he hadn’t.

Satisfied that Tatpho would name his grandsons according to his wishes, his father closed his eyes. “Ah… such chaotic times… the land, long united, must divide… this chaos may not be solved easily. You will take care of my descendants.”

When his father died, Tatpho and all the house of Koxinga formally mourned him.

Throughout the period of mourning, Tatpho fended off attacks from the Dutch and the Qing and a usurpation attempt by his own uncle.

His beloved omega went into heat in the fall; in the next summer, Pieter gave birth to another alpha boy. Tatpho named him Tshiauhing; Pieter called the boy Willem.

When the period of mourning was over, he renamed his kingdom to Tangleng. Tang, east; leng, tranquil.

———

When Pieter learned that his third baby was an omega boy, he began to sob and could not be comforted, not even by Tatpho when he barged in and purred for him.

“But this is wonderful, my darling fox,” Tatpho said, kissing Pieter’s cheeks. “A precious omega boy… You’ve done so well for our family.”

“But he’s  _ my son,”  _ Pieter wept, not fooled. “He’s… he’s not a thing to trade…!”

Tatpho kept purring and didn’t try to say anymore until Pieter fell asleep, exhausted.

They had taken the baby away from his bearer when Pieter became hysterical, afraid that Pieter might damage him. Tatpho went to see the child.

“My king’s consort is so tender minded,” the midwife said, not entirely with approval. “Perhaps it would be better to have this one reared by a wetnurse.”

“I didn’t ask for your advice,” Tatpho said coldly, and took the infant back in to Pieter’s room. He put the newborn down next to his bearer and purred until the baby was asleep as well.

At some point Tatpho drifted off too. He woke up to a newborn crying, and discovered that Pieter was sitting looking very morose, but at least not actually crying. The baby wasn’t in the room, but was nearby.

“Pieter,” said Tatpho, and took his hand.

Pieter’s face was a mess from all the exertion of the birth and then all the crying, but he squeezed Tatpho’s fingers lightly. “I nursed Lieven, he just got his clothes dirty. She said she’ll give him back to me soon.”

“She will,” Tatpho promised, and then tried to say, “Li-en?”

“Lieven.”

“Liehhhhhen,” Tatpho said, trying to get out the exotic  _ v  _ sound. “What does it mean?”

“Beloved,” Pieter said, shakily, “it means beloved.”

Tatpho kissed Pieter’s fingers. “If he is your beloved, Pieter, then how can I let him be stolen from you? I’ll find him the best alpha when he’s old enough. Someone you approve of for him, with no mother-in-law. Alright?”

“T-tatpho… thank you, thank you!” Pieter smiled and even laughed, returning Tatpho’s kisses with enthusiasm.

“My sweet fox. I’m sure our omega son will be as wonderful as you. His alpha will adore him, just wait.”

———

When Lieven was four years old, the clan began to rumble about having his feet bound, and Pieter became frightened about letting the boy out of his sight for a moment. Tatpho was off fighting the Dutch again, he had been gone a year; without his direct intervention, Pieter did not know how he could keep Lieven’s feet whole and unmutilated.

He couldn’t even be sure that Tatpho would grant Pieter’s plea. Tatpho indulged him in most things, but Pieter had never asked for anything like this. 

Things were getting dire now, however. Pieter could feel himself getting sluggish with an approaching heat. Without his mate to quell it, his heat could last as long as a week. That would be ample time for Pieter’s mother-in-law to swoop in and bind Lieven’s feet.

“Master,” the servant coaxed, as Pieter hugged Lieven to himself, “you aren’t well… your mother-in-law will care for the child.”

“He’s staying with me.”

“But during your heat…”

“He’s staying with me!” Pieter was determined. He may not win, but he would not give up fighting for his child. They would need to physically pull Lieven out of his arms.

His mother-in-law sent Timo in to plead, which was playing dirty.

“She won’t do anything bad to him, Ah Bo. She promised, she said it’s not that bad...”

“Your grandmother doesn’t think of it as bad because her own feet are like that. Timo, please…”

Timo couldn’t stand to see Pieter cry. “I’m sorry, Ah Bo… but won’t they do it to him sometime? Maybe it’s better…”

“Koko,” said Lieven, crying too, “I don’t want them to break my feet! I want to stay with Ah Bo!”

Far from the trump card Pieter’s mother in law expected, Timo returned to his grandmother as a sworn defender of his little brother’s feet, with Willem as his lieutenant.

The actual heat was agony. It was not the first dry heat that Pieter had undergone since Tatpho had left, but it was uniquely bad in that Pieter could only touch himself when Lieven slept, hiding behind a screen with a cloth in his mouth to muffle himself.

It was providential that Tatpho arrived when Pieter was only two days into the heat.

The alpha barely noticed that any of his servants were trying to talk to him, driven to running at the intense smell of Pieter’s heat. “Pieter,” he gasped, out of breath, when he barged into the room.

“Alpha?”

As Pieter stared in disbelief, Lieven added his own small voice. “Ah Bo, is that Lau Pe…?”

Tatpho had been so fixated on Pieter that he hadn’t even noticed that his omega son was in the room, sitting next to his bearer with a toy in his hand. “Pieter, why is Lieven in here? Why isn’t someone else taking care of him?”

Pieter was yanked out of his euphoria that his alpha was back and suddenly clutched onto Lieven’s shoulders, the boy letting out a small surprised yelp. “His feet,” said Pieter shakily, “please, Tatpho, I can't bear to let him be hurt like that… please, I beg you, don’t let them do it!”

“Oh, Pieter… you’ve hurt yourself so much for this? My love, of course it won’t happen if you forbid it.”

“But if I let him go, your mother’s going to do it. She wants to do it...”

Tatpho suddenly became enraged. “Give me Lieven,” he alpha commanded, and added, “Pieter, I’ll be right back. His feet will not be bound.”

When Tatpho got back, he found his omega naked and whimpering on the bed, and rather than conversation, he opened his robes enough to free his cock and pounce.

After two days of dry heat, having his alpha within reach, and then abruptly having his alpha disappear without touching him, Pieter went out of his mind with his heat when Tatpho finally entered him. The omega flooded him with his pheromones, scratched up his back with his nails, and left bite marks along his shoulders. The ferocity kicked Tatpho’s own instincts into overdrive.

“My perfect omega.” Tatpho thrust into Pieter from behind with bruising force, holding onto Pieter’s wrists and using them for leverage. “Can’t wait to see you swell for me again.  _ My _ omega.”

Pieter couldn’t even make words, but the bed was covered in the evidence of his orgasms and now he was coming dry.

Tatpho woke sometime later to smell that the heat had broken and Pieter was pathetically attempting to get out of bed. He had barely managed to crawl to the edge of the bed and was now trying to sit up and failing.

Tatpho’s own body was sore all over. “Pieter, come back and sleep. You need rest.”

“But Lieven… I need to check on Lieven…”

“Come back to my arms,” Tatpho commanded, worried that Pieter might fall out of the bed and hurt himself more. As Pieter began moving back, Tatpho said, “I told you I wouldn’t let his feet be bound without you. I promise, no one will dare to hurt him. I told my mother a long time ago that when Lieven’s feet would be bound would be your choice. She should never have forced you to panic like this. To try to do it behind my back… I was furious. Just look at you…”

Pieter had made it back into Tatpho’s arms, and his alpha tenderly moved wild tendrils of his hair out of his face.

“You could have really made yourself sick. I hate that you had to go through any heat without me in the first place… that you had to try to care for Lieven at the same time…” His face grew angry again, but Pieter knew it was not directed at him. “I sent her away. Do you know she actually tried to get servants on her side to take Lieven from you by force? Of course, they refused. If any of them had laid a hand on you…”

“But… you still expect Lieven’s feet to be bound someday?”

Tatpho sighed. “I had hoped that you would agree to it at some point… for his future marriage prospects…”

“You accepted me as I am,” said Pieter. “Can’t you find him an alpha that will?”

Tatpho kissed Pieter’s forehead. “Anything rather than make you suffer like that again.”

———

About fourteen years after Tshiauguan’s birth, with the Dutch and the Manchu threats quiet for the time being, Tatpho took advantage of the Spanish preoccupation with a rebellion in the south to launch more raids on the northern Philippines.

He took his two alpha sons with him, as well as the beta son that Tin’i had borne him. He did not expect Pieter to be happy about this, and Pieter definitely hadn’t been, but he had not made any objection, instead saying that he knew that the boys needed to learn about war and that he trusted Tatpho to bring his children back to him.

He did that, about a year later, along with a number of other treasures, among them one that he hoped would please Pieter very much.

“He paints,” he told Pieter proudly as he displayed the prisoner. “I told him if he paints for you and you like the pictures, I’ll send him to Manila.”

Pieter did not speak Spanish and the prisoner did not speak Dutch, but they were able to communicate directly in Latin, which Pieter had learned as a child. The prisoner’s Latin was much better than Pieter’s, but it was enough to arrange a family portrait.

When the portrait was finished, it was given pride of place in Pieter’s shrine, and on a cool and quiet winter day, he paused to admire it.

Timo, Willem, and Lieven. His stepson Tshiautiong, or Ah Tiong as they called him. His darling Anna, an omega girl, whom he named after his mother. And his youngest child, another alpha boy; Pieter called him Joost. Even some of the dogs had made it into the picture—although Pieter could not say that the painter had captured their likeness very well.

His husband, Tatpho, looking so proud and handsome. Himself…

How did he look?

_ Happy. I am with my beautiful family, and I am happy. _

———

_ About three-hundred-and-fifty years later: _

“Professor Xu! It is such an honour to meet you,” gushed the museum curator of the National Palace Museum in Taipei at the gallery opening. “When my assistant told me that the world famous scientist Lucien Xu had called to see if he could obtain an invitation to the opening, I was both shocked and thrilled! I’m always delighted to see any opportunity for the arts and the hard sciences to interact!”

“Actually, this is all quite a selfish endeavour,” Lucien said, smiling back. “You see, I have a personal connection—at least, if family history is true—to the subject of one of the paintings, and I wished to let my daughter see it—this is my daughter, Désirée Xu.”

The curator smiled at the preteen, but the girl merely regarded her steadily with a pair of striking blue eyes. “Really! But this is wonderful—I will introduce you directly to the archivist in charge; which painting are you referring to?”

“The crown of this exhibition,” Lucien said. “The portrait of Zheng Dabo and his consort Pieter van der Stel, with their children. My mother was surnamed Zheng, and as a child she told me she was descended from their oldest child, Timo Zheng Chaoyuan. Records are not entirely complete, of course, but as far as I can trace, it seems likely—and my daughter’s blue eyes add their own evidence.”

“Recessive genes can remain hidden in a bloodline for hundreds of years,” the girl said with a proud nod. “My daddy—he gave birth to me—he has blue eyes too, he’s mostly European genetically. So I had a fifty percent chance of having blue eyes, and I got lucky.”

“Oh, how interesting! Well! Come this way.”

The archivist was an elderly alpha woman, short but with a presence that far outsized her height, and with her was a middle aged alpha man. Introductions were made all around: the archivist, Diana Hsieh; the owner of the painting in question, Edward Cheng, also a descendant of Timo, but in his case with the firm geneological evidence to prove it.

"It's amazing to think how far apart descendants can spread," said Mr. Cheng. "My particular branch of the family went back to the mainland and then came back to Taiwan again, but there are also distant relatives in the same clan who never left the island. It must have been rather surreal when they reunited, to look at someone you'd never seen, probably unable to speak to other very well, and to think, 'two hundred and fifty years ago, our ancestors were brothers.'"

"My mother had no evidence that she was even part of the same Zheng clan as Koxinga, much less that she was descended from his heir by his wife. To her, it was the romance of royalty, you know. The notion that if things had been different and the Manchu had been repelled, we might all be aristocrats in a Han court. That was how she always wove the story to me as a child, anyway."

Désirée was looking closely at the large picture. The people in the picture were all dressed in Ming dynasty style, but the painter was clearly of a European tradition. The patriarch of the family, looking to be in his thirties, stood with his hand on the shoulder of a boy of about fifteen; another boy of about the same age stood next to the father, behind the other teenage boy. There were two more boys, maybe twelve and ten; then a little girl, maybe five, all standing, and finally a sleeping baby of about one year of age, cradled in the arms of a man with red hair coiled up with silver pins and a red mating collar visible around his neck.

“It really is a national treasure, that it exists at all and that it was so well-preserved. We have tentatively identified the painter as a Hispano-Philippine named Juan Zabarte. There is hardly any secular Hispano-Philippine art extant from this time period. Mr. Cheng is generously allowing the art to be exhibited in Manila next year also. At the time, the interactions between Western traditions of art and Chinese traditions were at their most tentative. The Chinese opinion of the time was that the realism of Western art was remarkable, but that it was not  _ artistic  _ in the same way that their own art was artistic,” the archivist said. “And from the Western perspective, there are very few extant works from this early by artists in the Western tradition that capture Chinese people in such respectful detail. Yet it was not its historical or artistic importance that led to its preservation, but rather its family importance. The main line of the family has long considered it a matchless heirloom. Perhaps you’d like to tell the story, Mr. Cheng.”

“Obviously, to our line of the clan, Zheng Dabo and his son Zheng Chaoyuan were both considered as much founders as Koxinga himself. It was Zheng Dabo who ruled as king for the longest, and it was Zheng Chaoyuan who navigated the complex surrender to the Qing dynasty that preserved the family as aristocrats. Had either of them been less skilled and wise, the whole clan would doubtless have been wiped out by the Qing forces. So to have two of them in one picture would have been enough to merit its being kept, although there was a time, I believe, when Pieter’s presence in the picture, and the realistic depiction of their children’s mixed heritage, was considered too embarrassing to be allowed to be shown to guests. This boy—” Mr. Cheng gestured to the teenager without his father’s hand on his shoulder—“is actually not Pieter’s son—perhaps you can tell by how much more Chinese he looks than the other children. He’s the beta son of a concubine, who had died by the time this was painted. The family story is that Pieter treated the boy like a son as well, and made sure he received an inheritance.”

“It would seem from his clothing that the son of the concubine is being dressed equally as well as the other children, though the hand on the oldest boy is an unmistakable symbol that this is the heir. The painter seems to have made several interesting decisions in composition to emphasize various things. Notice how, while a dog is obscuring the feet of the alpha boy, you can see this child here,” the archivist pointed, “is an omega boy from his dress, yet neither his nor the girl’s feet are bound, which was very unusual in the era for Han of their class.”

“Some of my ancestors became part of the anti-footbinding movement in the 19th century,” said Mr. Cheng. “I’ve wondered if the portrait and its tradition might be part of it. By that point, revolutionary ideas were...”

Désirée wandered away from this historical detail. It’s not that the stories and facts weren’t interesting, but she wanted to look at the art. In addition to the family portrait of her maybe-ancestors, there were many other pieces from the tumultuous 17th century, befitting the exhibit title, Superior and Other: Dutch, Han, and Indigenous Taiwanese Through Each Others’ Eyes.

After doing a slow circle around the room, looking at some grotesque engravings of atrocities in the Sino-Dutch Wars, and admiring some scale models of Dutch, Chinese, and Indigenous settlements, she paused at a stand with a document under glass, in Dutch, with a Chinese and English translation printed next to it.

_ My dear Mother, _

_ I know you must have been very worried about me from the moment I left, and how your kind heart must have suffered when you heard that our fort was overrun. I should have written to you sooner, but I thought at first that you would be pained to be reminded of me. But now I know that this cannot be true. I am so sorry, my dear Mother. _

_ I do not know what you have heard, so I will tell you the brief facts. I was among the captured from Sakam, and it was discovered that I was an omega. Of course I was terrified, but I was taken to be married. I cannot say that I have not experienced suffering, but I can tell you my husband has always tried to be very kind to me. He is the heir of Koxinga, so I am treated with great respect as his consort. I have plenty to eat, though I miss your wonderful cooking. Nothing here can compare to my memory of your green soup with meatballs and a warm slice of bread with butter. Not just the food, but the memory of sitting at the table with you and my sisters. _

_ This country is so hot, unbelievably hot. The winter is as warm as our summer, so everything is green. But the flowers and the butterflies are very beautiful. The clothing I wear is silk, so it is comfortable, more comfortable than how I dressed before. _

_ I have given birth to a son, an alpha, about a month ago. I thank God that he is healthy and I have christened him Timo. I enclose in this letter a clipping of his hair. Oh, my Mother, how I wish you could meet him, and that I could see you and kiss your hands! _

_ I have had to accept that it is impossible that I can ever come back to Holland. I would not know how to live as an Dutch omega, anyway. I have learned how to be a Chinese omega here. How to dress, how to speak the language, how to act. I think I will learn to be happy, Mother. I love my son so much. _

_ Please keep me in your prayers and know that I think of you often and will always think of you, my dearest Mother. _

_ Your loving son, _

_ Pieter van der Stel _

Next to the letter was a little miniature portrait of a teenage boy, face round with baby fat, a timid expression in his blue eyes, barely perceptible pale eyelashes, fiery red waves of hair brushing his shoulders and eyebrows the same shade.  _ Miniature portrait of Pieter van der Stel as a youth, by Samuel Cooper, ca. 1655, watercolour on vellum backed with cardstock in a gold frame, on loan from the Rijksmuseum. _

“What are you thinking, treasure?” her father said, and she lifted her face up to look at him.

“He must have looked very strange to the Chinese, when he came here, back then,” she said. “Everyone must have stared at him for the rest of his life. I would hate that. What did he mean, that he doesn’t know how to be a Dutch omega? It seems to me, if his husband was so kind, that he should have let him go home to his mother in the first place.”

“In Holland, at that time, all omegas were expected to identify and behave as women,” her father explained, “and women, back then, would have been expected to behave very differently from men. You see, Pieter was pretending to be a beta man up until his capture. In the historical situation of the time, it would have been very difficult for him to have been reaccepted into Dutch society, even if he tried to act as a woman, because of the scandal of his past. He probably would not have been able to get married, which was the only respectable option for a woman in Dutch society then, so he would have been a burden on his family and a source of shame.”

“So no matter where he went, he’d be a freak? That’s so not fair.”

“It is unfair.” Lucien said. “However, it does please me to compare the expression in his face in that miniature to the one in the family portrait. Would you like to look at it again with me?”

Désirée walked back the short distance to regard the oil painting again, this time looking more at Pieter’s face, matured, no longer childish. It was smiling, a real smile with crinkles at the eyes. His posture was relaxed as he held his youngest child.

“I think they look like a happy family,” said Lucien. “The dogs are a bit funny, though, aren’t they?”

Désirée giggled. “Yes, I don’t think the painter was very good at dogs.”

“If he had a husband and children that loved him, and funny-looking dogs, I think he was probably able to have a good life. Not a perfect life, not a life where he didn’t have people that he missed dearly. But a good life, especially for the era.”

Désirée smiled. “I think you’re right. And, I suppose I should be grateful that they got together, if they’re the reason I can have blue eyes like daddy.”

Lucien laughed. “I wonder... Pieter and his husband probably wouldn’t understand much about our world, but I think they might be pleased that after so many years they finally have a descendant with blue eyes.”

“And I would tell Pieter that I’m an omega but I can go and do whatever I like!” declared Désirée.

Her sire took her hand. “I’m sure that would make Pieter very happy too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The various spellings in the pseudo-modern day scene may be confusing. A Chinese character's spoken version can be transliterated many ways depending on the system and the dialect, so, for example, Tenn, Zheng, and Cheng are all ways to transliterate the family name 鄭. Tenn Tatpho's name in Mandarin pinyin would be Zheng Dabo.
> 
> Lucien and Désirée are characters from the story I wrote which inspired this one, _Queen's Choice(s)_.


End file.
